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THE WRECK OF THE CORSAIRE 




THE WRECK OF 

THE CORSAIRE 



BY 


AUTHOR 


W; CLARK RUSSELL 


»» 

OF “the wreck of the grosvenor,” “ma- 


rooned,” “ A THREE-STRANDED YARN,” ETC. 


CHICAGO 

CHARLES H. SERGEL COMPANY 


i4 n-m 


TZ3 

C,o-{^ 


Copyright, 1897, 

BY 

CHARLES H. SERGEL COMPANY. 


THE WRECK OF 

THE CORSAIRE* 


i. 

All day long there had been a pleas- 
ant breeze blowing from abeam ; but as 
the sun sank into the west the wind 
fined into light, delicate curls of shadow 
upon the sea that, at the hour of sun- 
down, when the great luminary hung 
poised like a vast target of flaming gold 
upon the ocean-line, turned into a sur- 
face of quicksilver through which there 
ran a light, wide, long-drawn heave of 
swell, regular as a respiration, rhythmic 
as the sway of a cradle to the song of a 
mother. 

The ship was an Indiaman named the 
Ruby ; the time long ago, as human life 

5 


6 


THE WRECK OF 


runs, in this century nevertheless, when 
the old traditional conditions of the sea- 
life were yet current — the roundabout 
Indian voyage by way of the Cape — 
the slaver sneaking across the brassy 
parallels of the Middle Passage — the 
picaroon in the waters of the Antilles 
dodging the fiery sloop whose adaman- 
tine grin of cannons was rendered hor- 
ribly significant to the eye of the greasy 
pirate by the cross of crimson under 
whose meteoric folds the broadside 
thundered. 

I was a passenger aboard the Ruby , 
making the voyage to India for my 
pleasure. The fact was, being a man of 
independent means, I was without any 
sort of business to detain me at home. 
Your continental excursion was but a 
twopenny business to me. Here was 
this huge ball of earth to be circumnavi- 
gated whilst one was young, with spirits 
rendered waterproof by health. Time 
enough, I thought, to amble about 


THE CO RS A IRE. 


7 


Europe when Australia began to look 
a long way off. So this was my third 
voyage. One I had made to Sydney 
and Melbourne, and a second to China ; 
and now I was bound to Bombay with 
some kind of notion beyond of striking 
across into Persia, thence to Arabia, and 
so home by way of the classic shores of 
the Mediterranean. 

Well, it happened this 18th of June 
to be the captain’s birthday. His name 
was Bow ; he would be fifty-three 
years old that day he told us, and as he 
had used the sea since the age of thir- 
teen he was to be taken as a man who 
knew his business. And a better sailor 
there never was, and never also was there 
a person who looked less like a sailor. 
If ever you have seen a print of Charles 
Lamb you have had an excellent like- 
ness of Captain Bow before you — a pale, 
spare creature of a somewhat Hebraic 
cast of countenance, with a brow un- 
darkened by any stains of weather. His 


8 


THE WRECK OF 


memory went far back ; he had served 
as mate in John Company’s ships, had 
known Commodore Dance who beat 
Linois and spoke of him as a perfect 
gentleman ; deplored the gradual decay 
of the British sailor, and would talk with 
a wistful gleam in his eye of the grand 
and generous policy of the Leadenhall 
Street Directors in allowing to their cap- 
tains as much cubic capacity in the ships 
they commanded for their own private 
use and emolument as would furnish 
out the dimensions of a considerable 
smack. 

It was his birthday, and long ago all of 
us passengers had made up our minds to 
celebrate the occasion by a supper, a 
dance on deck, and by obtaining per- 
mission for Jack forward to have a ball, 
on condition that we should be allowed 
to ply him with drink enough to keep 
his heels nimble, and no more. We 
were in the Indian Ocean climbing north, 
somewhere upon the longitude of Am- 


THE COKSAIRE. 


9 


sterdam Island, so formidable was the 
easting made in the fine old times. The 
latitude, I think, was about 12 0 south, 
and desperately hot it was, though the 
sun hung well in the north. Spite of 
awnings and wet swabs the planks of the 
deck seemed to tingle like tin through 
the thin soles of your boots. If you put 
your nose into an open skylight the air 
that rose drove you back with a sense of 
suffocation, so heavily was the fiery stag- 
nation of it loaded with smells of food 
and of the cabin interior, though there 
never was a sweeter and breezier cuddy 
with its big windows and windsail-heels 
when the thermometer gave the place 
the least chance. But when the sun 
was nearly setting, some sailors quietly 
came aft and fell to work to make a ball- 
room of the poop. They took the bunt- 
ing out of the signal locker and stretched 
it along the ridge-ropes betwixt the awn- 
ing and the rail until it was like standing 
inside a huge Chinese lantern for color. 


IO 


THE WRECK OF 


They hung the ship’s lamps along in 
rows, roused up the piano from its moor- 
ings in the cuddy, embellished the tops 
of the hencoops with red baize, and in 
fifty directions not worth the trouble of 
indicating, so decorated and glorified the 
after-end of the ship that when the lamps 
came to be lighted with streaks of pearl- 
colored moonshine glittering upon the 
deck betwixt the interstices of the signal 
flags, and movement enough in the tran- 
quil lift of the great fabric to the swell to 
fill the eye with alternations of swaying 
shadow and gleam, this ball-room of al- 
mond-white plank and canvas ceiling of 
milky softness and walls of radiant 
banners was more like some fairy sea- 
vision than a reality, especially with the 
glimpse you caught of the vast silent 
ocean solitude outside with its sky of 
hovering stars and a stillness as of a 
dead world in the atmosphere — such a 
contrast, by heaven ! to the revelry 
within the shipboard pavilion, when once 


THE CORSAIR E. 


1 1 


the music had struck up and the forms 
of women in white gowns fluffing up 
about them like soapsuds were swim- 
ming round the decks in the embrace of 
their partners, that a kind of shudder 
would come into you with the mere 
thinking of the difference between the 
two things. 

The music was good; there was a 
steerage passenger, a lady, who played 
the piano incomparably well ; then there 
was a cuddy passenger who blew upon 
the flute very finely indeed. A military 
officer returning to India after a long in- 
validing spell at home had as light, deli- 
cate and accomplished a hand on the 
fiddle as any of the best of the first violins 
which I have heard in the crackest of 
orchestras. When the committee of 
passengers had been talking about and 
arranging for this band the chief officer 
told them that if they thought there 
would not be instruments enough there 
was a man forward, a fellow named Ratt, 


12 


THE WRECK OF 


who played the fiddle exquisitely and, if 
we wished it, he would make one of the 
instrumentalists. We consented, and for 
several days previous to this night you 
might have heard Ratt rehearsing in the 
’tween decks, scraping in a way that 
made the military gentleman who had 
been invalided look somewhat grave. 
He spoke of Ratt with a foreboding eye, 
and what he feared happened. The man 
could indeed play, but he had no sense 
of time. All went wrong with the first 
dance-air that was struck up. The tune 
he made was right enough ; but it was 
always darting ahead and bewildering 
the others, and finally the band came to 
a stop, though Ratt continued to play 
several bars, whilst the military gentle- 
man in great temper was shouting to him 
to go away. I should have felt sorry for 
the poor fellow had he not been saucy, 
for he had dressed himself with extraor- 
dinary care, greased every separate hair 
upon his head as though it had been a 


THE CORSAIRE. 


*3 


rope-yarn, and had arrived aft with a 
sailor’s expectation of seeing plenty of 
fun and getting plenty of drink. It 
ended in the chief mate grasping him by 
the collar and tumbling him down the 
poop ladder. I afterwards heard that he 
went forward and in a towering passion 
threw his fiddle overboard, swearing that 
he would never play upon anything again 
but the Jew’s harp and then only for 
hogs to dance to ; there was no longer 
any taste left amongst human beings, he 
said, for downright real good music. 

The merriment aft was scarcely af- 
fected by this instant’s failure. The 
moment Jack had been tumbled off the 
poop the instrumentalists began afresh 
and the decks were once more filled with 
sliding and revolving couples. I had 
slightly sprained my ankle that morning 
by kicking against a coil of rope and was 
unable to dance ; but this was no dep- 
rivation to me on a burning hot night 
like that, with no place for the draughts 


14 


THE WRECK OF 


out of the fanning canvas to come 
through, and the smell of blistered paint 
rising in a lukewarm breathing off the 
sides of the ship as though the sun still 
stood over the main- truck. So squat- 
ting myself on a hencoop I sat gazing 
at the merry, moving, radiant picture and 
listening to the music and to the laughter 
of the girls which came back from the 
canvas roof of the poop in echoes soft 
and clear as the notes of the flute. 


II. 


There were thirty-two cabin passen- 
gers in all, and we had a poopful, as you 
will suppose. There were more than a 
dozen girls, dark and fair, most of them 
pretty enough. There were a few young 
married ladies too and a little mob of 
dignified mammas. The men were of 
the old-fashioned mixture, a few military 
officers, a sprinkling of Civil Service 
young gentlemen, fierce old men with 
white whiskers and gleaming eyes, with 
peppercorns for livers and with a capa- 
city of putting on the tender aspects of 
Bengal tigers when anything went wrong 
— merchants, judges, planters — I can 
scarce remember now what they were. 
There were lanterns enough to make a 
bright light and some of them being of 

*5 


1 6 THE WRECK OF 

colored glass threw bars of ruby and of 
emerald against the yellow radiance of 
the clear flame and the ivory streaks 
of moonlight. Far aft was the wheel 
with the brass upon it reflecting the 
lustre till it glowed out against the 
blackness over the stern like a circle 
of dull fire upon the liquid obscurity. 
Grasping the spokes of it was the figure 
of a seaman, smartly apparelled in flow- 
ing duck and a grass hat on “ nine 
hairs ” ; his shape, dim in the distance, 
floated up and down against a bright 
star or two ; but there was little need 
for him to keep his eye on the course. 
The calm was dead as dead could be. 
Half-an-hour since the ship’s head was 
northwest and now it was west, and the 
swell was under the bow with a strange 
melancholy sob of water breaking into 
the pauses betwixt the music and sound- 
ing like the sigh of a weeping giant 
somewhere in the blackness over the 
side. 


THE CO ESA IRE. 


1 7 


And black the water was spite of the 
air being brimful of the soft silver of 
the moonlight. On either hand the 
planet’s wake the ocean ran in ebony to 
the indigo of the night sky; but you 
only needed to steal to the break of the 
poop clear of the awning to mark how 
gloriously the luminary was limning the 
ship as if she had no magic for the deep 
that night. Every sail was a square of 
pearl, every shroud and backstay, every 
brace and halliard a rope of silver wire ; 
the yards of ivory, with hundreds of 
stars of moonlight splendor sparkling 
and flashing in the dew along the rails. 
The Jacks had rigged up lanterns for- 
ward and were cutting capers on the 
forecastle and in the waist to some 
queer music that was coming out of 
the darkness upon the booms. It was 
strange enough to see their whiskered 
faces revolving in the weak, illusive 
light, to witness apparitions of knobs 
and warts and wrinkles storm-darkened 
2 


1 8 THE WRECK OF 

to the hue of the shell of a walnut show- 
ing out for an instant to the glare of a 
lantern. There was great laughter that 
way and a jovial growling of voices. I 
believe the sailors had got, with the cap- 
tain’s leave, some of the women of the 
steerage passengers to dance with, and 
their happiness was very great ; for give 
Jack a fiddle, and a girl to twirl to the 
sawing of it, and a drink of rum and 
water to fill up the short measures for 
his breathing-times, and he will ask for 
no other paradise ashore or afloat. 

Much was made of old Captain Bow. 
He looked as if he had taken all day to 
dress himself, so skewered was he in a 
garb of the old school ; tail-coat, a frill, 
a collar half-way the height of the back 
of his head, buff waistcoat, tight pan- 
taloons, shoes like pumps, and a heavy 
ground-tackle of seals dangling from the 
rim of his vest. 

“Captain shows nobly to-night, sir,” 
said the chief mate to me. 


THE CORSAIRE. 


19 

“ Ay ! ” said I, “ little enough of the 
salt in him you’d think.” 

“ He dances well enough for an old 
shellback,” said the mate. “A man 
needs a ship for a dancing-master to 
teach him how to spread his toes as the 
Captain does.” 

“ Aren’t you dancing ? ” I asked. 

“ No, it’s my watch on deck. I’ve 
got the ship to look after. But it’s little 
watching she wants. Oh, blow, my 
sweet breeze, blow ! ” he whispered, 
with a pensive cock of his eye at the 
sea through a space between the flags. 
“It isn’t to be the only birthday aboard 
us, I allow, Mr. Catesby. If the cock- 
roaches below aren’t celebrating some 
festival of their own, then are we 
manned with marines, sir. Phew! the 
Hooghley of a dead night with bodies 
foul of the cable and the gangway ladder 
is a joke to this. What’s become of the 
wind? What’s become of the wind?” 


20 


THE WRECK OF 


and he stole away to the wheel softly 
whistling between his teeth. 

It was too sultry to eat; the very 
drink you got was so warm that you 
swallowed it only for thirst, and put 
down the glass with a sort of loathing. 
When I took a peep through the after 
skylight and saw the tables laid out for 
supper for the special birthday feast 
that was to be eaten, my tongue clave 
to the roof of my mouth, and I felt as 
if I should never be able to eat another 
blessed morsel of food this side the 
grave. Every dish looked exhausted 
with perspiration ; the hams were melt- 
ing, the fowls shone like varnish, much 
that had come solid to the table was 
now fluid. However I was one of the 
committee and it would not do for me 
to be absent, so when the bell rang to 
announce supper and the music stopped, 
I stepped up to the wife of a colonel 
and, giving her my arm, fell in with the 
procession and entered the cabin. 


THE CORSAIRE. 


21 


It is a picture I need but close my 
eyes to vividly witness anew. There 
were two tables, one athwartships well 
aft, and the other running pretty nearly 
down the whole length of the cabin. 
The interior was lighted with elegant 
silver lamps, and along the length of the 
ceiling there was a plentiful embellish- 
ment of ferns, goldfish in globes, and so* 
forth. On either hand went a range of 
berths, the bulkheads richly inlaid, the 
panels hand-painted, and there was many 
another little touch full of grace and 
taste. Far aft, at the centre of the 
athwartship table — his quaint, old-fash- 
ioned figure showing like a cameo upon 
the dull ground of the bulkhead behind 
him — sat the captain, talking to right 
and left, with a dry, kind smile lying 
wrinkled upon his face like the meshes 
of a South African spider’s web. On 
either side of him went a row of pas- 
sengers, and on down to the foot of the 
table that was over against the cuddy 


22 


THE WRECK OF 


front. The ladies’ dresses were hand- 
some ; we were a rich assemblage of 
folks for the most part, and had thor- 
oughly overhauled our wardrobes that 
we might do fitting honor to this very 
interesting occasion. Jewels sparkled 
in white ears, and upon white wrists and 
fingers. We were not lacking in turbans 
and feathers, in thick gold chains, im- 
mense brooches bearing the heads of 
the living or of the departed. There 
was much popping of champagne corks, 
much rushing about of stewards, much 
laughter, and a busy undertone of talk. 
The memory of the picture dwells in me 
with an odd pertinacity. I had shared in 
more than one festive scene on board 
ship in my time, but in none do I recall 
the significance which the framework of 
vast ocean solitude outside, of the deep 
mystery of the wide moonlit shadow, 
and the oppressive peace of the tropical 
night, communicated to this one. It 
might have been the number of the folks 


THE CORSAIRE . 


23 


assembled ; their gay, and in many in- 
stances, even splendid attire, the essen- 
tially shore-going qualities of the merry- 
making, clearly defining themselves in 
the heart of the deep — like the sight of 
a house in a flood. In fact the scene 
completely dominated all ship-board 
habits, and the thoughts which grew 
out of them. It made every heave of 
the fabric upon the weak, black, invisible 
swell a sort of wonder, as though some 
novel element were introduced ; the 
familiar creak of a bulkhead, the faint 
jar of the rudder upon its post made 
one start as one would to such things 
ashore. 

“ You are refusing everything the 
stewards offer you, Mr. Catesby,” said 
the colonel’s lady by my side. “You 
are in love.” 

“ I am in a fever, madam,” I replied : 
“ the tropics usually affect me as a pro- 
found passion. In fact I feel as if I 
could drown myself.” 


24 


THE WRECK OF 


“ Why make a voyage to India, then, 
Mr. Catesby ? Is there not the North- 
West Passage left to explore, with the 
great Arctic Circle to keep ye cool ? ” 

“ Madam,” said I, “ I perceive your 
husband in the act of rising to make a 
speech.” 

A short, fiery-faced Irishman, with 
whiskers like silver wires projecting cat- 
like from his cheeks, stood up to pro- 
pose the captain’s health. Glasses were 
filled, and the little colonel blazed away. 
When he had made an end (old Bow 
steadfastly watching him all the while 
with a smile of mingled incredulity and 
delight), the skipper’s health was drunk 
with cheers and to the song of “ He’s a 
jolly good fellow,” the air of which was 
caught up by the ship’s company for- 
ward, and re-echoed to the cuddy with 
hurricane lungs from the forecastle. 
Then old Bow rose straight and unbend- 
ing in his tightly-buttoned coat on to 
his thin shanks ; but at that moment 


THE CORSAIRE. 


2 5 


there was a movement of a little group 
of the stewards at my end of the table ; 
the colonel’s lady by my side was 
whispering with animation to what was 
in those days called a “ griffin/’ a hand- 
some young fellow seated on her left ; 
and being half dead with heat, and in 
no temper to listen to old Bow, whose 
preliminary coughs and slow gaze around 
the table threatened a very heavy be- 
stowal of tediousness, I slipped off my 
chair, sneaked through the jumble of 
stewards, and in a moment was ascend- 
ing the poop ladder, breathing with de- 
light the night atmosphere of the sea, 
that tasted cold as a draught of mount- 
ain water after the hot, food-flavored 
air of the cuddy. 


III. 


Forward the sailors had come to a 
stand, and were talking, smoking, drink- 
ing, and eating by the will-of-the-wisp 
glare of the few lanterns which hung 
that way. There was nobody aft, sav- 
ing the helmsman and the second officer 
who had turned out to relieve the chief 
mate that he might join the supper party. 
He lay over the rail abreast of the wheel, 
and I could hear him quietly singing. 
The lanterns burnt brightly ; against the 
brilliant atmospheric haze of moonshine 
to larboard — larboard was then the word 
— the bunting which walled the poop 
glistened like oiled paper. The monot- 
onous voice of old Bow was still return- 
ing thanks below ; again and again his 
deep sea notes were broken by loud 

27 


28 


THE WRECK OF 


cheers. The life under decks, the 
speechifying and the huzzaing there, 
the brightness of the light, the frequent 
chink of glasses, put a wild sort of mock- 
ing look into the emptiness of this deck 
with its lanterns swaying to the roll of 
the ship, and the motionless figure of 
the steersman showing unreal, like some 
image of the fancy down at the end of 
the vessel, through the vista of bunting 
and kaleidoscopic light and white awn- 
ing framing a star-studded square of dark 
ether over the taffrail. 

Yet I still wanted air. The poop was 
smothered up with flags and canvas ; -the 
cross-jack was furled, spanker brailed up, 
and the mainsail hung from its yard in 
festoons to the grip of its gear. There 
was no wing of canvas therefore near the 
deck to fan a draught along, and so it 
came into my head to jump aloft and 
see what sort of coolness of dew and 
night were to be had in the maintop. I 
got on to the rail and laid hold of the 


THE CORSAIRE. 


29 


main shrouds, and leisurely travelled up 
the ratlines. Methought it was as good 
as climbing a hill for the change of tem- 
perature the ascent gave me. The iron 
of the futtock shrouds went through and 
through me in a delicious chill, and with 
the smallest possible effort I swung my- 
self over the rim of the top and stood 
upon the platform, rapturously drinking 
in the gushings of air which came in little 
gusts to my face out of the pendulum 
beat of the great maintopsail against 
the mast to the tender swing of the tall 
fabric. 

If ever you need to know what a deep 
sense of loneliness is like, go aloft in a 
dead calm when the shadow of the night 
lies heavy upon the breathless ocean, 
and from the altitude of top, cross-tree 
or yard, look down and around you ! 
The spirit of life is always strong in the 
breeze or in the gale of wind. There 
are voices in the rigging; there is the 
organ note of the billow flung foaming 


3 ° 


THE WRECK OF 


from the ship’s side ; there is a tingling 
vitality in the long floating rushes of the 
fabric bursting through one head of 
yeast into another. All this is company, 
along with the spirit shapes of the loose 
scud flying wild, or the sociable proces- 
sion of large, slow clouds. But up aloft 
in such a clock-calm as lay upon the deep 
that night you are alone! and the lone- 
lier for the distant sounds which rise 
from the decks — the dim laugh, the faint 
call, liker to the memories of such things 
than the reality. 

The body of the ship lay thin and 
long far beneath me like a black plank, 
pallid aft with the spread of awning, 
with an oblong haze of light in the main 
hatch where the grating was lifted, and 
dots of weak flame from the lanterns 
forward, resembling bulbous corposants 
hovering about the forecastle rail. The 
ship’s hull was complexioned to the as- 
pect of the leaf of the silver tree when 
lighted by the stars by the broad raining 


THE CO RS A IRE. 


3i 


of the moonshine. Yet, as she slightly 
rolled, breaking the black water from 
her side into ripples, you saw the phos- 
phor starting and winking in the ebony 
profound there, like the reflection of 
sheet-lightning. Exquisitely lulling was 
the tender pinion-like flapping of the 
light, moonlit canvas, soaring spire- 
fashion in ivory spaces high above my 
head, with the pattering of dew falling 
from the cloths as they swayed. A 
sound of thin cheering from the cuddy 
floated to me ; presently a fiddle struck 
up somewhere forwards, and a manly 
voice began Tom Bowling. Now, 
thought I, if they would only strip the 
poop of its awning, that I might see 
them dancing by the lantern light when 
supper was over, and they had fallen to 
caper-cutting afresh ! What a scene of 
pigmy revelry then ! What a vision of 
Lilliputian enjoyment ! 

I seated myself Lascar fashion and 
lighted a cigar. Could I have distin- 


THE WRECK OF 


52 

guished the figure of a midshipman 
below I should have hailed him, and 
sent down the end of a line for a draught 
of seltzer and brandy. But the repose 
up here, the dewy coolness, the royal 
solitude of the still, majestic night, with 
sentinel stars drowsily winking along the 
sea-line, and the white planet of the 
moon sailing northwards into the west 
amid the wide eclipse of its own soft 
silver glory, were all that my fevered 
being could pray for. 

It is as likely as not that after a little 
I was nodding somew r hat drowsily. I rec- 
ollect that my cigar went out, and that 
on sucking at it and finding it out I 
would not be at the trouble of lighting it 
again. I say I might have been half- 
asleep sitting, still Lascar fashion, with 
my back against the head of the lower- 
mast, when on a sudden, something — 
soft, indeed, but amazingly heavy — 
struck me full on the face and chest, 
and fell upon my knees, where it lay 


THE COES A IRE. 


33 


like a small feathered-bed. But for my 
back being supported, I must have been 
stretched at full length and, for all I 
know, knocked clean overboard, or, 
worse still, hurled headlong to the deck. 

3 



IV. 


I was so confounded by the shock 
and the blow that for some moments I 
sat goggling the object that lay as lead 
upon my knees like a fool. I then 
threw it from me, and stood up. It fell 
where a slant of moonshine lay clear 
upon the side of the top, and I per- 
ceived that it was a big sea-bird, as 
large as a noddy, white as snow saving 
the margin of its wings, which were of 
a velvet black. It had a long, curved 
beak, and I gathered from the look of 
one of its pinions, which overlaid the 
body as though broken, that its width of 
wing must have come proportionally 
very near to that of the albatross. I 
could see by the moonshine that the 
eyes were closing by the slow drawing 

35 


36 


THE WRECK OF 


down of a white skin. The creature 
did not stir. I stood staring at it full 
five minutes, gripping the topmast rig- 
ging to provide against its rolling me 
out of the top should it rise suddenly 
and strike out with its wings, but there 
was no stir of life in it. It was then 
that I caught sight of something which 
seemed to glitter in the thick down 
upon its breast like a dewdrop on thistle- 
down. It was a little square case of 
white metal, apparently a tobacco-box, 
secured to the bird’s neck. By this 
time the passengers had come up from 
supper, and w r ere dancing again on the 
poop. I could see nothing for the awn- 
ing, but the music was audible enough, 
and I could also catch the sliding 
sounds of feet travelling over the hard 
planks, and the gay laughter of hearts 
warmed by several toasts. The Jacks 
were also at work forward. An oc- 
casional note of tipsy merriment, I would 
think, rose up from that part of the 


THE CORSAIRE. 


37 


ship ; but there was no lack of earnest- 
ness in the toe and heeling there ; the 
slap of the sailors’ feet upon the decks 
sounded like the clapping of hands; 
and I could just catch a glimpse of the 
figure of the fiddler in the obscurity 
which overlaid the booms quivering and 
swaying as he sawed, as though the 
noise he made was driving him crazy. 

I seized the big bird by the legs and 
found its weight by no means so con- 
siderable as I should have supposed 
from the blow it dealt me. So, tightly 
binding its webbed feet with my pocket- 
handkerchief, that they might serve me 
as a handle, I dropped with this strange, 
dead sea-messenger through the wide 
square of the lubber’s hole into the 
main shrouds, and leisurely descended. 
The chief mate stood at the head of the 
starboard poop ladder as I reached the 
rail. 

“ Hillo ! ” he called out, “ good sport 
there, Mr. Catesby. What star have 


THE WRECK OF 


3§ 

you been shooting over pray ? And 
what is it may I ask ? A turkey ? ” 

A shout of this sort was enough to 
bring everybody running to look. The 
music ceased, the dancing abruptly 
stopped. In a moment I was sur- 
rounded by a crowd of ladies and 
gentlemen shoving and exclaiming as 
they gathered about the skylight upon 
which I had laid the big sea-fowl. 

“ What is it, Mr. Catesby ? My 
stars ! a handsome bird surely,” ex- 
claimed Captain Bow. 

“ Oh, Captain,” cried a young lady, 
“ is the beautiful creature dead really ? ” 
“ See ! ” shouted a military man, “ the 
creature's breast is decorated with a 
crucifix. No, damme, it’s a trick of the 
light. What is it, though ? ” 

“ A silver pouncebox, I declare,” ex- 
claimed a tall, stout lady, with a know- 
ing nod of the feather in her head. 

“ A sailor’s nickel tobacco-box more 
like, ma’am,” observed the mate, “ with 


THE CORSAIRE. 


39 

some castaway’s writing inside, or that 
bird’s a crocodile.” 

“ Let’s have the story of the thing, 
Mr. Catesby,” said the captain. 

I briefly stated that I had ascended 
to the maintop to breathe the cool air 
up there and that whilst I was nodding 
the bird had dashed against me and 
fallen dead across my knees. 

“ Oh, how dreadful ! ” “ Oh, how in- 
teresting ! ” “ Oh, I wonder the fright 

didn’t make you faint, Mr. Catesby ! ” 
and so on, and so on from the young 
ladies. 

“ Shall I cast the seizing of the box 
adrift, sir ? ” said the mate. 

“ Ay,” responded the captain. 

The officer with his knife severed the 
laniard of sennit and made to lift the 
lid of the box. But this proved a 
long job, inexpressibly vexatious to the 
thirsty expectations of the onlookers, 
owing to the lid fitting as to resist, as 
though soldered, the blade of the knife. 


40 


THE WRECK OF 


When opened at last, there was dis- 
closed, sure enough, inside, a piece of 
paper folded, apparently a leaf from a 
logbook. 

“ Bring a lantern, some one,” roared 
the mate. 

Some one held a light close to the 
officer, who exclaimed, after opening the 
sheet and gazing at it a little, “ Any lady 
or gentleman here understand Spanish ? ” 

“ I do,” exclaimed the handsome young 
“ griffin ” who had sat next to the colo- 
nel’s lady at table. 

<k Will you kindly translate this then ? ” 
said the mate, handing him the letter. 

“ It’s French,” said the young fellow ; 
“no matter; I can read French.” 

Fie ran his eye over the page, coughed 
and read aloud as follows : — 

“ The Corsaire , June 12th, 18 — . This 
brig was dismasted in a hurricane ten 
days since. Three of us survive. At 
the time of our destruction our latitude 
was 8° south, and longitude 8i° \o r 


THE CO RSA IRE. 


41 


east. Should this missive fall into the 
hands of any master or mate of a ship 
he is implored in the name of God and 
of the Holy Virgin to search for and to 
succor us. He will be richly.” * * * 

“ Last words illegible,” said the young 
fellow, holding the paper close to his 
nose. 

“ Humph ! ” exclaimed Captain Bow. 
He hummed over the latitude and longi- 
tude, and addressing the mate said, 
“ The wreck should not be far off, Mr. 
Pike.” 

“ Oh, Captain, will you search for the 
poor, poor creatures ? ” cried one of the 
younger of the married ladies. 

“ Twelfth of June the date is, hey? ” 
said the captain, “ and this is the eight- 
eenth. In six days the deluge, madam 
— at sea. Well, we shall keep a bright 
look-out, I promise you. D’ye want to 
keep the bird, Mr. Catesby ? ” 

“ No,” said I, “the box will suffice as 
a memorial.” 


42 


THE WRECK OF 


“ Then, Mr. Pike, let it be hove over- 
board,” said the captain. 

“Strike up 6 2om Bowling ’ for its 
interment,” cried the little Irish colo- 
nel, “ 1 Faithful below he did his duty * 
you know. Nearly knocked poor Cates- 
by overboard, though. What is it, a 
Booby ? ” 

“ How can ye be so rude, Desmond ? ” 
said his wife. 

“ ’Tis the bird I mane, my love,” he 
answered. 

The girls would not let it be hove 
overboard for a good bit. They hung 
over the snow-white creature caressing 
its delicate down and strong feathers 
with fingers whose jewels glittered upon 
the plumage like raindrops in moonlight. 
However, ere long the music started 
anew. The people that still hovered 
about the bird drew off, and the mate 
sneaking the noble creature to the side 
quietly let it fall. 


V. 


Well, next day, I promise you, this 
incident of the bird gave us plenty to 
talk about. In fact it even swamped the 
memory of the dance and the supper, 
and again and again you would see one 
or other of the ladies sending a wistful 
glance round the sea-line, in search of the 
dismasted brig — as often looking astern 
as ahead, whilst one or two of the young 
fellows amongst us crept very gingerly 
aloft, holding on as they went as though 
they would squeeze all the tar out of the 
shrouds, just to make sure that there 
was nothing in sight. However, there 
was a professional look-out kept for- 
ward. I heard the captain give direc- 
tions to the officer of the watch to send 
a man on to the fore-royal yard from 

43 


44 


THE WRECK OF 


time to time to report if there was any- 
thing in view; but as to altering his 
course with the chance of picking up 
the Frenchman, that was not to be ex- 
pected in old Bow, whose business was 
to get to Bombay as fast as the wind 
would blow him along ; and indeed, see- 
ing that the Ruby had already been hard 
upon four months from the river Thames, 
you will suppose that, concerned as we 
might all feel about the fate of The 
Cor s air e , the softest-hearted amongst us 
would have been loth to lose even a day 
in a search that was tolerably certain to 
prove fruitless — as the mate proved to 
a group of us whilst he stood pointing 
out our situation and the supposed 
position of the brig upon a chart of the 
Indian Ocean lying open upon the sky- 
light. 

We got no wind till daybreak of the 
morning following the dance, and then a 
pleasant air came along out of south- 
southeast, which enabled the Ruby to 


THE CORSAIRE. 


45 


expand her stunsails, and she went float- 
ing over the long sapphire swells of the 
fervid ocean under an overhanging cloud 
of cloths which whitened the water to 
starboard of her, till it looked like a sheet 
of quicksilver draining there. This 
breeze held and shoved the ponderous 
bows of the Indiaman through it at the 
rate of some four or five miles in the 
hour. So we jogged along, till it came 
to the fourth day from the date of my 
adventure in the maintop. The fiery 
breeze had by this time crept round to 
off the starboard bow, and the ship was 
sailing along with her yards as fore and 
aft as they would lie. It was a little 
before the hour of noon. The captain 
and mates were ogling the sun through 
their sextants on either hand the poop, 
for the luminary hung pretty nearly over 
the royal trunk with a wake of flaming 
gold under him broadening to our cut- 
water, so that the Ruby looked to be 
stemming some burning river of glory 


46 


THE WRECK OF 


flowing through a strange province of 
dark blue land. 

Suddenly high aloft from off the main- 
top-gallant-yard — whose arm was jock- 
eyed by the figure of a sailor doing 
something with the clew of the royal — 
came a clear, distant cry of “ Sail-ho,” 
and I saw the man levelling his mar- 
line-spike at an object visible to him a 
little to the right of the flying-jibboom 
end. 

“ Aloft there ! ” bawled the mate, put- 
ting his hand to the side of his mouth, 
“ how does she show, my lad ? ” 

“ ’Tis something black, sir,” cried the 
man, making a binocular glass of his 
fists. “ ’Tis well to the starboard of the 
dazzle upon the water. It is too blind- 
ing that way to make sure.” 

“ Something black ! ” shouted the 
little colonel, whose Christian name was 
Desmond. “ The Cor s air e, Captain Bow, 
without doubt. Anybody feel inclined 
to bet ? ” 


THE CORSAIRE. 


47 


Some wagering followed, whilst I 
stepped below for a telescope of my 
own, and then went forward and got 
into the fore-rigging, with the glass 
slung over my shoulders. There was 
no need to ascend above the top. I 
levelled the telescope when I gained 
that platform, and instantly saw the 
object with a handbreadth of the gleam 
of the blue sea past her, showing that 
she was well this side of the horizon 
from the elevation of the foremast, and 
that she would be visible from the poop 
in a little while. There was but a 
very light swell on ; the spires of the 
Ruby floated steadily through the blue 
atmosphere. I had no difficulty in com- 
manding the object therefore, and the 
powerful lenses of my telescope brought 
her close. It was a wreck, a sheer hulk 
indeed, and without a shadow of a doubt 
The Corsaire. Her masts were gone, 
though a fragment of bowsprit re- 
mained. Whole lengths of her bul- 


48 


THE V/RECK OF 


work were apparently crushed flat to 
the covering-board ; nevertheless, the 
hull preserved a sort of rakish aspect, 
a piratical sheer of long, low side. 
“ Let her prove what she will,” thought 
I, “ I am a Dutchman if yonder craft 
hasn’t carried a bitter and poisonous 
sting in her head and tail in her time.” 

They had “ made ” eight bells on the 
poop, and the mellow chimes were 
sounding upon the quarter-deck, and 
echoing in the silent squares of canvas, 
as I descended the rigging and made 
my way aft. I told Captain Bow that 
the craft ahead was a hulk, and with- 
out doubt The Co?‘saire ; on hearing 
which the passengers went in a rush to 
the side and stood staring as though 
the object were close aboard, some of 
them pointing and swearing they could 
see her, though at the rate at which we 
were shoving through it she was a fair 
hour and a half yet behind the horizon 
from the altitude of the poop. 


THE CORSAIRE. 


49 


However, when I came up from tiffin 
some little while before two o’clock, 
the hulk lay bare upon the sea over the 
starboard cathead, with a light like 
the flash of a gun breaking from her 
wet black side to the languid roll of her 
sunwards, and a crowd of steerage- 
passengers and sailors forward staring 
at her. At any time a wreck at sea, 
washing about in the heart of some 
great ocean solitude, will appeal with 
solemn significance to the eye of one 
sailing past it. What dreadful tragedy 
has she been the little theatre of, you 
wonder ? You speculate upon the hu- 
man anguish she memorializes, upon 
the dark and scaring horrors her shape 
may entomb. But it is a sight to ap- 
peal with added force to people who 
have been at sea for many long weeks, 
without so much as the glimpse of a 
sail for days at a time to break the 
enormous monotony of the ocean, or to 
furnish a fugitive human interest to the 
4 


5 ° 


THE WRECK OF 


ever-receding sea-line — that most mock- 
ing of all earthly limitations. 

“ Anybody see any signs of life 
aboard of her ? ” exclaimed Captain 
Bow. “ My sight is not what it was.” 

There were many sharp young eyes 
amongst us, and some powerful glasses ; 
but there was nothing living to be seen. 
She looked to have been a vessel of 
about two hundred and fifty tons. Her 
copper sheathing rose to the bends, and 
was fresh and bright. She had ap- 
parently been pierced for ten guns, but 
this could be only conjecture, seeing 
that her bulwarks had been torn to 
pieces by the fall of her spars. There 
was a length of topmast, or what-not, 
riding by its gear alongside of her, with 
a raffie of canvas and running rigging 
littering the fore-part. Her wheel stood, 
and her rudder seemed sound. She 
was flush-decked, but all erections such 
as caboose, companion, and so forth, 
were gone. Yet she sat with something 


THE CO ESA /RE. 


51 


of buoyancy on the water, and her roll- 
ing was without the stupefaction you 
notice in hulls gradually filling. As her 
stern lifted, the words, Le Corsaire, 
Havre, rose in long, white letters upon 
the counter, with a sort of ghastliness 
in the blank stare of them by contrast 
with the delicate blue of the sea. Old 
Bow hailed her loudly; then the mate 
roared to her with the voice of a bull, 
but to no purpose. I said to the second 
mate, who stood alongside of me at the 
rail : — 

“ Yonder to be sure is the ship from 
which the sea-bird brought the letter 
the other night. There were three liv- 
ing men aboard her a few days ago. 
Are they below, think you ? ” 

“ Been taken off, sir, I expect,” he 
answered. “ Or dead of hunger, or 
thirst, and lying corpses in the cabin. 
Or maybe they drowned themselves. 
Mr. Pike’s hail was something to bring 
a dying man out of his bunk to see 


5 2 


THE WRECK OF 


what made it. No, sir, yonder’s an 
abandoned craft or a coffin anyway.” 

Some ladies standing near overheard 
this, and at once went to work to induce 
the captain to bring the Ruby to a stand, 
and send a boat. I listened to them in- 
treating him ; he shook his head good- 
naturedly, with a glance into the north- 
western quarter of the sea. “ Oh, but 
dear Captain, ” the ladies reasoned, 
ff after that letter, you know, as though 
you were appointed by Providence to 
receive it — surely, surely, you will not 
sail away from that wreck without mak- 
ing quite sure that there is nobody on 
board her ! Only conceive that the 
three poor creatures may be dying in 
the cabin, that they may have heard 
your cry and Mr. Pike’s, and even be 
able to see this ship through a porthole, 
and yet be too weak to crawl on deck to 
show themselves ? ” What followed was 
lost to me by the second mate beginning 
to talk : — 


THE CORSAIRE. 


53 


“ She’ll have been a French priva- 
teer, he said to me. “ What a superb 
run, sir ! Something in her heyday not 
to be easily shaken off a merchantman’s 
skirts. Of course she’ll have thrown all 
her guns overboard in the hurricane. 
Does the capt’n mean to overhaul her, I 
wonders,” he continued throwing a look 
aloft. “ He’ll have to bear a hand and 
make up his mind or we shall be losing 
her anon in yonder thickness. Mark 
the depression in the ocean line nor’- 
west, sir. D’ye notice the swell gathers 
weight too and there’s a dustiness in 
the face of the sky that way that’s 
better than a hint that the Bay of 
Bengal is not so many leagues distant 
ahead as it was a month ago.” 

He was rattling on in this fashion, 
more like one thinking aloud than talk- 
ing to a companion, when there was a 
sudden clapping of hands among the 
ladies who surrounded the captain, and 
at the same moment I heard him tell 


54 


THE WRECK OF 


the mate to swing the topsail to the 
mast and get one of the starboard 
quarter-boats manned. All was then 
bustle for a few minutes, the mate bawl- 
ing, the sailors singing out at the ropes, 
men manoeuvring with the boats’ grips 
and falls. I went up to the captain. 

“ Who has charge of the boat ? ” said I. 

“ Second mate,” he answered. 

“Any objection to my accompanying 
him, Captain ? ” 

“ Not in the least, Mr. Catesby. I 
will only ask you, should you board her, 
to look alive. The weather shows rather 
a suspicious front down there,” indicat- 
ing with a nod of his head the quarter 
to which the second mate had called 
my attention. “ But, bless my heart ! 
there’ll be nothing to see, nothing 
worth sending for. It is only to please 
the ladies, you know.” 

I sprang into the boat as she swung 
at the davits. It was a trip, a treat, a 
pleasant break for me ; besides, my 


THE CORSAIRE . 


55 


being the first to receive the letter gave 
me a kind of title, as it were, to the ad- 
venture. 

“ There’s room for others,” said the 
second mate, standing erect in the stern 
sheets with a wistful glance at a knot of 
pretty faces at the rail. 

There was no response from male 
or female. “Lower away now lively, 
lads,” cried the mate. Down sank the 
boat, the blocks were dexterously un- 
hooked, out flashed the oars and away 
we went. 

I couldn’t have guessed what weight 
there was in this ocean swell till I felt 
the volume of it from the low seat 
of the ship’s quarter-boat. The Ruby 
looked to be rolling on it as heavily 
again as she seemed to have been when 
I was on her deck, and the beat of her 
canvas against the mast rang in volleys 
through the air like the explosion of 
batteries up there. The wreck came 
and went as we sank and soared, and 


THE WRECK OF 


5 6 

I caught the second mate eyeing her 
somewhat anxiously as though theoriz- 
ing to himself upon the safest dodge to 
board her. She was farther off than I 
should have deemed possible, so de- 
ceptive is distance at sea, and though 
the five seamen pulled cheerily, the 
job of measuring the interval between 
the two craft, what with the voluminous 
heave of the swell running at us, and 
what with the roasting sunshine that 
lay like a sense of paralysis in the 
backbone, proved very tedious to my 
impatience to come at the hulk and ex- 
plore her. As we swept round under 
her stern, supposing that her starboard 
side would be clear of wreckage, I 
glanced at the Ruby and saw that they 
were clewing up her royals, and haul- 
ing down her flying jib with hands on 
the cross-jack-yard rolling the sail up. 
There were spars and a litter of trail- 
ing gear on either side the hulk ; every 
roll was a spiteful snapping at the 


THE CORSAIRE. 


57 


ropes with a drag of the floating sticks 
which sometimes made the water foam. 

“ We must board her astern,” said the 
mate, “ and stand by for a handsome 
dip of the counter.” 

Our approach was very cautious ; 
indeed, it was necessary to manoeuvre 
very gingerly indeed. We got on to the 
quarter, and watching his chance the 
bow oarsman cleverly sprang through 
the crushed rail as the deck buoyantly 
swung down to the heave of the boat, 
carrying the painter with him ; the mate 
followed, and I, after a tolerably long 
interval, wanting perhaps the nerve and 
certainly the practised limbs of the 
sailors. In truth I may as well say 
here that I should have stuck to the 
boat and waited for the mate’s report 
but for the dislike of being laughed at 
when I returned. I very well knew I 
should not be spared, least of all by 
those amongst the passengers who 
would have forfeited fifty pounds rather 
than have quitted the ship. 


% 


» 





VI. 


The hull had a desperately wrecked 
look inboards with the mess of ropes, 
staves, jagged ends, crushed rails, rents 
manifesting the fury of the hurricane. 
I swept a glance along in expectation 
of beholding a dead body, or if you 
will, some scarcely living though yet 
breathing man ; but nothing of the 
kind was to be seen. The mate hung 
his head over the companion hatch 
from which the cover had been clean 
razed and peered down, then shouted 
and listened. But no other sound fol- 
lowed than the long moan and huge 
washing sob of the swell brimming to 
the wash-streak with a dim sort of 
choking, gurgling noise as of water 
streaming from side to side in the hold. 

59 


6o 


THE WRECK OF 


“ Hardly worth while exploring those 
moist bowels, I think, sir,” said the 
mate. 

“ Oh, yes,” said I, “ if we don’t take 
a peep under deck what will there be 
to tell ? This is a quest of the ladies’ 
making, remember, and it must be a 
complete thing or * stand by,’ as you 
sailors say.” 

“ Right you are, sir,” said he, “ and 
so here goes,” and with that he put 
his foot upon the companion ladder 
and dropped into the cabin. 

I followed at his heels, and both of us 
came to a stand at the bottom of the 
steps whilst we stared round. There 
was plenty of light to see by streaming 
down through the skylight aperture and 
the hatch. The cabin was a plain, 
snuff-colored room with a few sleeping 
berths running forward, a rough table 
somewhat hacked and cut about as if 
with the slicing of tobacco, a row of 
lockers on either hand, a stand of 


THE CORSAIRE. 


61 


firearms right aft and some twenty cut- 
lasses curiously stowed in a sort of 
bracket under the ceiling or upper 
deck. Hot as it was above, the cabin 
struck chill as though it were an old 
well. Indeed you saw that it had been 
soused over and over again by the seas 
which had swept the vessel, and there 
was a briny, seaweedy flavor in the at- 
mosphere of it that made you think of 
a cave deep down in a sea-fronting 
cliff. We looked into the sleeping 
berths going forward to where a mov- 
able bulkhead stopped the road. It 
was not easy to walk ; the increasing 
weight of the swell was defined by the 
heavy though comparatively buoyant 
rolling of the hull. The deck went in 
slopes like the roof of a house from 
side to side with now and again an 
ugly jerk that more than once came 
near to throwing me when a sudden 
yawn forced the dismasted fabric into a 
swift recovery. 


62 


THE WRECK OF 


“There’s nobody aft here, anyway,” 
said the mate; “no use troubling our- 
selves to look for her papers, I think, sir.” 

“ No ; but this is only one end of the 
ship,” I answered. “ There may be a 
discovery to make forward. Can’t we 
unship that bulkhead there, and so get 
into the ’tween-decks ? ” 

We laid hold of the frame, and after 
peering a bit, for this part of the cabin 
lay in gloom, we found that it stood in 
grooves, and without much trouble we 
slided it open, and the interior to as far 
as a bulkhead that walled off a bit of 
forecastle lay clear before us in the day- 
light shining through the main-hatch. 
Here were a number of hammocks 
dangling from the deck, and some score 
or more of seamen’s chests and bags in 
heaps, some of them split open, with 
quantities of rough wearing apparel 
scattered about, insomuch that I never 
could have imagined a scene of wilder 
disorder, nor one more suggestive of 


THE CORSAIRE. 63 

hurry and panical consternation and 
delirious headlong behavior. 

“ Nobody here, sir,” said the mate. 

“ No,” I answered ; “ I suppose her 
people left her in their boats, and that 
one of the wretches who were forced 
to remain behind wrote the letter we 
received the other night.” 

“At sea,” said the mate, “there is no 
imagining how matters come about. I 
allow that the three men have been 
taken off by some passing vessel. Any- 
way, we’ve done our bit, and the capt’n 
I expect ’ll be waiting for us. Thunder ! 
how she rolls,” he cried, as a very heavy 
lurch sent us both reeling towards the 
side of the craft. 

“ Hark! ” cried I, “ we are hailed from 
the deck.” 

“ Below there ! ” shouted a voice in 
the companion hatch. “ They’ve fired a 
gun aboard the Indiaman, sir, and have 
run the ensign up half-masted. The 
weather looks mighty queer, sir.” 


64 


THE WRECK OF 


“ Ha ! ” cried the mate ; “ come along, 
Mr. Catesby.” 

We walked cautiously and with diffi- 
culty aft, gained the companion ladder 
and ascended. My instant glance went 
to the Ruby. She had furled her main- 
sail and fore and mizzen top-gallant- 
sails, hauled down her lighter staysails 
and big standing jib, and as I glanced at 
her a gun winked in a quarter-deck port, 
and the small thunder of it rolled sulkily 
up against the wind. In fact, whilst we 
were below the breeze had chopped 
clean round and the Ruby was to lee- 
ward of the wreck, with a very heavy 
swell rolling along its former course, the 
wind dead the other way, beginning to 
whiten the ridges on each huge round- 
backed fold, and a white thickness — a 
flying squall of vapor it looked to me, 
with a seething and creaming line of 
water along the base of it as though it 
was something solid that was coming 
along — sweeping within half-a-mile of 


THE CORSAIRE . 


65 

the wreck right down upon us. The 
mate sent a look at it and uttered a cry. 

“ Haul the boat alongside,” he shouted 
to the fellow in her. “ Handsomely 
now, lads. Stand by to jump into her,” 
he cried to the seaman who had been 
the first to spring on board the wreck 
with the end of the line. 

They brought the boat humming and 
buzzing to the counter ; the sailor stand- 
ing on the taffrail plumped into her like 
a cannon-shot ; ’twas wonderful he didn’t 
scuttle her. The mate whipping the 
painter off the pin or whatever it was 
that it had been belayed to held it by a 
turn whilst he bawled to me to watch my 
chance and jump. But the wreck lying 
dead in the trough was rolling in quite a 
frenzied way, like a see-saw desperately 
worked. Her movements, combined 
with the soaring and falling of the boat, 
were absolutely confounding. I would 
gather myself together for a spring and 
then, before I could make it, the boat 
5 


66 


THE WRECK OF 


was sliding as it might seem to me 
twenty or thirty feet deep and away. 

“ Jump, for God’s sake, sir ! ” cried 
the mate. 

“ I don’t mean to break my neck,” I 
answered, irritable with the nervous 
flurry that had come to me with a 
sudden abominable sense of incapacity 
and helplessness. 

As I spoke the words, sweep ! came 
the white smother off the sea over us 
with a spiteful yell of wind of a weight 
that smote the cheek a blow which 
might have forced the strongest to turn 
his back. The hissing, and seething, 
and crackling of the spume of the first 
of the squall was all about us in a breath, 
and in the beat of a heart to the Ruby, 
and the ocean all her way vanished in 
the wild and terrifying eclipse of the 
thick, silvery, howling, steam-like mist. 

“ By , I have done it now !” cried 

the mate. 

The end of the painter had been 


THE CORSAIRE. 


67 

dragged from his hand or he had let it 
fall ! And the wind catching the boat 
blew her over the swell like the shadow 
of a cloud. The seamen threw their 
oars over and headed for us, their faces 
pale as those of madmen. 

“They’ll never stem this weather,” 
cried the mate, “ follow me, Mr. Cates- 
by, or we are dead men.” 

He tore off his coat, kicked off his 
boots and went overboard without an- 
other word. 

Follow him ! To the bottom, indeed ! 
but nowhere else, for I could not swim 
a stroke. But that was not quite it. 
Had I had my senses I might have 
grasped the first piece of wreckage I 
could put my hand upon and gone after 
him with it to paddle and hold on till I 
was picked up. But all this business 
coming upon us so suddenly, along 
with the sudden blinding of me by the 
vapor, the distracting yelling of the 
wind and the sickening bewilderment 


68 


THE WRECK OF 


caused by the wreck’s violent rolling, 
seemed to have driven all my wits clean 
out of my head. The boat was scarcely 
more than a smudge in the thickness, 
vanishing and showing as she swept up 
and rushed down the liquid acclivities, 
held with her bow towards the hulk by 
the desperately-plied oars of the rowers. 
The mate was borne down rapidly to- 
wards her. I could just see three of 
the sailors leaning over the side to drag 
him out of the water ; the next instant 
the little fabric had vanished in the 
thickness, helplessly and with horrible 
rapidity blown out of sight the moment 
the men ceased rowing to rescue their 
officer. 

I do not know how long all this may 
have occupied ; a few minutes maybe 
sufficed for the whole of the tragic 
passage. I stood staring and staring, 
incredulous of the truth of what had be- 
fallen me, and then with an inexpress- 
ible sickness of heart I flung myself 


THE CORSAIRE. 


69 

down upon the deck under the lee of a 
little space of bulwark, too dizzy and 
weak with the horror that possessed me 
to maintain my footing on that wildly 
swaying platform. 


if 


VII. 


I had met in my travels with but one 
specimen of such weather as this ; it 
was off the Cape of Good Hope to the 
westward ; the ship was under topmast 
and topgallant studdingsails, when, 
without an interval of so much as 
twenty seconds of calm, she was taken 
right aback by a wind that came with 
the temper of half a gale in it, whilst as 
if by magic a fog, white and dense as 
wool, was boiling and shrieking all 
about her. 

For some time my consternation was 
so heavy that I sat mechanically staring 
into that part of the thickness where the 
boat had disappeared, without giving 
the least heed to the sea or to the 
wreck. It was then blowing in earnest, 

7 1 


7 2 


THE WRECK OF 


the ocean still densely shrouded with 
flying vapor, and an ugly bit of a sea 
racing over the swell that rolled its 
volumes to windward. A smart shock 
and fall of water on to the forecastle 
startled me into sudden perception of a 
real and imminent danger. The fore- 
scuttle was closed, but the main and 
companion hatchways yawned opened 
to the weather ; there were no bul- 
warks worth talking of to increase the 
wreck’s height of side, and to hinder 
the free tumbling of the surge on to the 
decks, so if the wind increased and the 
sea grew heavier, the hulk must inevita- 
bly fill and go down like a thunderbolt ! 

It would be idle to try to express the 
thoughts which filled me. I was like 
one stunned : now casting an eye at 
the sea to observe if the billows were 
increasing, now with a heart of lead 
watching the water frothing upon the 
deck, as the hull heaved from one side 
to another ; then straining my sight 


THE CORSAIRE. 


73 


with a mad passion of eagerness into 
the vapor that shut off all view of the 
ocean to within a cable’s length of me. 
There was nothing to be done. Even 
could I have met with tarpaulins, there 
was no sailor’s skill in me to spread 
and secure them over the open hatches. 
However, when an hour had passed in 
this way, I took notice of a small failure 
of the wind, though there was no light- 
ening of the impenetrable mist. The 
folds of the swell had diminished, and 
the sea was running steadily ; the hull 
with her broadside dead on, rose and 
fell with regularity, and though at long 
intervals the surge struck her bow, and 
blew in crystals over the head, or fell 
in scores of bucketfuls upon the deck, 
nothing more than spray wetted the 
after-part of her. 

It was now about six o’clock in the 
evening. In two hours time the night 
would have come down, and if the 
weather did not clear, the blackness 


74 


THE WRECK OF 


would be that of the tomb. What 
would the Ruby do? Remain hove-to 
and await for moonlight or for day- 
break to seek for me ? A fragment of 
comfort I found in remembering that 
the wreck’s position would be known to 
Captain Bow and his mates, so that 
their search for me, if they searched at 
all, ought not to prove fruitless ; though 
to be sure much would depend upon 
the drift of the hulk. Presently, fearing 
that there might be no water or pro- 
visions on board, I was seized with a 
sudden thirst, bred by the mere ap- 
prehension that I might come to want a 
drink. There was still light enough to 
enable me to search the interior, and 
now I suppose something of my man- 
hood must have returned to me, for I 
made up my mind to waste no moment 
of the precious remaining time of day 
in imaginations of horror and of death 
and in dreams of desperate despond- 
ency. I went on my hands and knees 


THE CORSAIRE. 


75 


to the hatch, lest if I stood up I should 
be knocked down by the abrupt rolling 
of the craft, and entered the cabin. 
On deck all was naked and sea-swept 
from the taffrail to the “ eyes,” and if 
there were aught of drink or of food to 
be had it must be sought below. I rec- 
ollected that one of the forward berths 
or cabins, which the second mate and I 
had looked into, had shown in the gloom 
as a sort of pantry ; that is to say, in 
peering over my companion’s shoulders, 
I had caught a glimpse of crockery on 
shelves, the outlines of jars and so 
forth. But the inspection had been 
very swift, scarce more than a glance. 
I made for this cabin now, very well 
remembering that it was the last of a 
row of three or four on the starboard 
side. I opened the door, and secured 
it by its hook to the bulkhead that I 
might see, and after rummaging a little 
I found a cask of ship’s bread, a small 
cask (like a harness cask) a quarter full 


THE WRECK OF 


76 

of raw pickled pork, a jar of vinegar, 
two large jars of red wine, and best of 
all, a small barrel about half full of fresh 
water, slung against the bulkhead, with 
a little wooden tap fixed in it, for the 
convenience as I supposed of drawing 
for cabin use. There were other 
articles of food, such as flour, pickles, 
dried fruit, and so on ; the catalogue 
would be tedious, nor does my memory 
carry them. 

I poured some wine into a tin panni- 
kin, and found it a very palatable, sound 
claret. I mixed me a draught with cold 
water, and ate a biscuit with a little 
slice of some kind of salt sausage, of 
which there lay a lump in a dish, and 
found myself extraordinarily refreshed. 
I cannot tell you indeed how comforted 
I was by this discovery of provisions 
and fresh water, for now I guessed that 
if the weather did not drown the wreck, 
I might be able to support life on board 
of her until the Ruby took me off, which 


THE CORSAIRE. 


77 


I counted upon happening that night if 
the moon shone, or most certainly next 
morning at latest. My heart however 
sank afresh when I regained the deck. 
The sudden change from the life, the 
cheerfulness, the security of the India- 
man, to this — “ Oh, my God ! my God ! ” 
I remember exclaiming as I sank down 
under the lee of the fragment of bul- 
wark, with a wild look around into the 
thickness and along the spray-darkened 
planks of the heaving and groaning de- 
relict. The loneliness of it ! no sounds 
saving the dismal crying of the wind 
sweeping on high through the atmos- 
phere, and the ceaseless seething and 
hissing of the dark-green frothing seas 
swiftly chasing one another out of sight 
past the wall of vapor that circled the 
wreck, with the blank and blinding mist 
itself to tighten as with a sensible liga- 
ture into unbearable concentration the 
dreadful sense of solitude in my soul. 

Slowly the wind softened down, very 


THE WRECK OF 


78 

gradually the sea sank, and their worry- 
ing note of snarling melted into a gen- 
tler tone of fountain-like creaming. But 
the vapor still filled the air, and so thick 
did it hang that, though by my watch I 
knew it to be the hour of sundown, I 
was unable to detect the least tinge of 
hectic anywhere, no faintest revelation 
of the fiery scarlet light which I knew 
must be suffusing the clear heavens 
down to the easternmost of the confines 
above this maddening blindness of mist. 

Then came the blackness of the night. 
So unspeakably deep a dye it was that 
you would have thought every luminary 
above had been extinguished, and that 
the earth hung motionless in the sun- 
less opacity of chaos out of which it 
had been called into being. The hours 
passed. I held my seat on the deck 
with my back against a bulwark stan- 
chion. It was a warm night with a 
character as of the heat of steam owing 
to the moisture that loaded and thick- 


THE CO ESA IRE. 


79 


ened the atmosphere. Sometimes I 
dozed, repeatedly starting from a snatch 
of uneasy slumber to open my eyes with 
ever-recurring horror and astonishment 
upon the blackness. Gleams of the sea- 
fire shot out fitfully at times from the 
sides of the wreck, and there was noth- 
ing else for the sight to rest upon. At 
midnight it was blowing a small breeze 
of wind and the sea running gently — at 
midnight I mean as I could best reckon ; 
but the darkness remained unchanged, 
and I might know that the fog was still 
thick about me by no dimmest spectre 
of moon or star showing. 









VIII. 


I then slept, and soundly too, for two 
or three hours, and when I awoke it was 
daylight, the sea clear to the horizon, 
the sky a soft liquid blue with masses 
of white vaporous cloud hanging under 
it like giant bursts of steam, and the sun 
shining with a sort of misty splendor 
some degree or two above the sea-line. 
There was a pleasant air blowing out of 
the north, with power to wrinkle the 
water and no more. My limbs were so 
cramped that for a long while I was in- 
capable of rising ; when at last my legs 
had recovered their power I stood erect 
and swept the ocean with my eyes. 
But the light blue surface went in un- 
dulations naked to the bend of the heav- 
ens on all sides. I looked and looked 
6 81 


82 


THE WRECK OF 


again, but to no purpose. I strained my 
sight till an intolerable torment in my 
eyeballs forced me to close my lids. 
There was nothing in view. I very well 
remember falling on my knees and gro- 
velling upon the deck in the anguish of 
my spirit. I had so surely counted on 
daylight exhibiting the Ruby somewhere 
within the circle which inclosed me that 
the disappointment that came out of the 
bald vacancy of the ocean struck me 
down like a blow from a hammer. Pres- 
ently I lifted up my head and regained 
my feet, and feeling thirsty moved with 
a tread of lead to the yawning hatch, 
sending the most passionate, yearning 
glances seaward as I walked, and halt- 
ing again and again to the vision of 
some imagination of break in the con- 
tinuity of the gleaming girdle — some del- 
icate shoulder of remote cloud, some 
imaginary speck which dissolved upon 
the blue air whilst my gaze was on it. 

I mixed some wine and water, and 


THE CORS A IRE. 


83 


made a light repast off some biscuit and 
a piece of Dutch cheese that was on the 
shelf. I then thought I would look into 
the cabins for a chair to sit upon on 
deck, for a mattress to lie upon, for 
something also that might make me a 
little awning, and pushed open the door 
of the berth immediately facing the pan- 
try, as I may call it. The wreck was 
rolling very lightly, and her decks were 
now as easy of stepping as the India- 
man’s. This berth contained a bunk 
and bedding, a sailor’s chest, some 
clothes hanging against the bulkhead, 
but nothing to serve my turn. The 
next was similarly furnished, saving that 
here I took notice that a small quantity 
of wearing apparel lay about as though 
scattered in a hurry, and that the lid of a 
great box, painted a dark green with the 
letter D in white upon it, had been split 
open as though the contents were to be 
rifled, or as though the lock had resisted 
and there had been no time to coax it 


84 


THE WRECK OF 


save by a chopper. I passed into a 
third cabin. This had some comfort of 
equipment in the shape of shelves and 
a chest of drawers, and had doubtless 
been the commander’s. There was a 
very handsome telescope on brackets, a 
few books, a quadrant, a large silver 
timepiece, a small compass and one or 
two other matters of a like sort upon a 
little table fitted by hinges in a corner ; 
there were three chests in a row with a 
litter of boots and shoes, a soft hat or 
two, a large handsome cloak costly with 
fur, and so forth, strewed about the 
deck. 

I was looking with some wonder at 
these articles when my eye was taken 
by something bright near the smallest 
of the three chests. I picked it up ; it 
was an English sovereign. Others lay 
about as though a handful had been 
clutched and dropped — here being the 
same manifestations of terrified hurry 
as, it seemed to me, I witnessed in the 


THE CORSAIRE . 85 

other cabins. The lid of the small chest 
was split in halves, and the chopper 
that had seemingly been wielded rested 
against the side of the box. A massive 
padlock was still in the staples. I lifted 
the half of the lid and was greatly as- 
tonished by the sight of a quantity of 
gold pieces lying in divisions of a tray 
that fitted the upper part of the chest. 
Each division contained coins of vari- 
ous nations. They were all gold pieces 
— English, Portuguese, Brazilian and 
coins of the United States. I prized 
open the padlocked part of the lid and 
seized the tray to lift it that I might ob- 
serve what lay underneath. But the 
weight of gold in it was so great that I 
had to exert my utmost strength to raise 
one end of the tray on to the edge of the 
box ; which done, I was able to slide it 
along till the bottom of the box was 
revealed. 

The sight of the gold had filled me 
with expectations of beholding some 


86 


THE WRECK OF 


amazing treasure under the tray. What 
I there saw was a heap of rough, brick- 
shaped stuff of a dull, rusty, reddish 
tint. I grasped a lump, and though I 
had never seen gold in that form before, 
I was satisfied by the extraordinary 
weight of the piece I held that all those 
coarse, rough, dull-colored bricks were of 
the most precious of metals. I slided 
the tray back to its place and let fall the 
two halves of the lid with another look 
around me for any article that might be 
useful to me on deck. The excitement 
kindled by the spectacle of the gold 
rapidly died away. I dully mused on 
it, so to speak, whilst my eye roamed, 
languidly speculating about it, with a 
strange indifference in my thoughts, 
concluding that it represented the pri- 
vateersman’s sorted plunder ; that in 
all likelihood when the rush had been 
made to the boats one or more had split 
open this chest to fill their pockets, but 
had been obliged to fly for their lives 


THE CORSAIRE. 


87 

ere they could find time for more than 
a scrambling clutch at the tray. But it 
was the contents no doubt of this chest 
— if indeed this chest held all the treas- 
ure of the buccaneer — that was indi- 
cated by the writer of the letter in the 
concluding line of it, the closing words 
of which had been found illegible by the 
young fellow who translated the mis- 
sive. 

I put the telescope under my arm and 
passed into the cabin, and found a small 
chair near the arms rack, and near it 
upon the deck lay a great cotton um- 
brella, grimy and wet with the saturation 
of the cabin. I took it up thankfully 
and carried it with the chair up the 
steps. There was a great plenty of 
ropes 1 ’ ends knocking about. I cut a 
piece and unlaid the strands, and secur- 
ing the umbrella to a stanchion, sat 
down on the chair under it ; and indeed 
without some such shelter the deck 
would have been insupportable, for low 


88 


THE WRECK OF 


as the sun still was in the east, his fires 
were already roasting, and I well knew 
what sort of temperature was to be ex- 
pected as he floated higher, leaving my 
form with a small blotch of southern 
shadow only attached to it. 

I passed the morning in sweeping the 
horizon with the telescope. It was a 
noble glass — a piece of plunder, with an 
inscription that represented it as a gift 
from the officers of a vessel to her com- 
mander ; I forget the names, but recol- 
lect they were English. The placidity 
of the day dreadfully disheartened me. 
There was but little weight in the lan- 
guid air to heave the Ruby or any other 
vessel into view. The sea under the sun 
was like brand new tin for the dazzle of 
it, and as the morning advanced the 
heavy, vaporous clouds of daybreak 
melted out into curls and wisps like to 
the crescent moon, with a clear sky ris- 
ing a pale blue from the horizon to over- 
head to where it swam into the brassy 


THE CORSAIRE. 


89 

glory which flooded the central heavens. 
Weary of sitting, and exhausted by look- 
ing, I put down the glass and went to the 
main hatch with the idea of making out 
what water there was in the hold. The 
pumps were gone and the wells of them 
sank like black shafts under the deck. 
But whatever there was of water in the 
hulk lay so low that I could not catch so 
much as a gleam of it. There was some 
light cargo in the hold — light as I reck- 
oned by the sit of the wreck upon the 
water ; chiefly white wooden cases, with 
here and there canvas bales ; but what- 
ever might have been the commodities 
there was not much of them, at least 
amidships, down into which I stood 
peering. 

I then walked on to the forecastle and 
lifted the hatch-cover. This interior 
looked to have been used by the people 
of the Corsaire as a sort of sail-locker. 
The bulkhead extended but a very short 
distance abaft the hatch, and the deck 


9 o 


THE WRECK OF 


was stowed with rolls of sails, coils of 
spare rigging, hawsers, tackles, and so 
forth. I put my head into the aperture 
and took a long and careful survey of 
the interior, for the mate and I had not 
explored this part of the brig, and it was 
possible, I thought, I might find the 
bodies of the three survivors here. But 
there was nothing whatever to be wit- 
nessed in that way; so I closed the 
hatch again and went aft. 


IX. 

The day passed, the light breeze lin- 
gered, but it brought nothing into sight. 
I would think as I sent my glance along 
the naked, sea-swept, desolate deck, 
gaunt and skeleton-like, with its ragged 
exhibition of splintered plank and 
crushed bulwark, that had there been a 
mast left in the hull I might from the 
summit of it be able to see the Ruby , 
whose topmost cloths lay sunk behind 
the horizon to the eyes which I levelled 
from the low side of the wreck. “ Oh ! ” 
I would cry aloud, “if I could but be 
sure that she was near me though hid- 
den ! ” Maddening as the expectation 
might have been which the sight of her 
afar would have raised in me, yet the 
mere having her in view, no matter how 

9 1 


92 


THE WRECK OF 


dim, deceptive a speck she proved, would 
have taken a deal of the bitterness, the 
heart-subduing feeling of hopelessness 
out of the wild and awful sense of deso- 
lation that possessed me. 

The sun sank; with the telescope 
trembling in my hands I made a slow, 
painful circle of the ocean whilst the 
western magnificence lay upon it, and 
then let fall the glass and fell into the 
chair, and with bowed head and tightly- 
folded arms, and eyes closed to mitigate 
by the shadowing of the lids the anguish 
of the fires which despair had kindled in 
them — for my heart was parched, no re- 
lief of tears came to me — I waited for 
the darkness of a second night to settle 
down upon the wreck. But on this day 
the gloom fell with the brilliance of stars, 
and some time after eight the moon rose, 
a moist, purple shield, at whose coming 
the light draught of wind died out and 
the ocean flattened into a breathless, 
polished surface. When presently the 


THE CORSA/RE. 


93 


moon had soared and whitened, the sea 
looked as wide again as it was to the 
showering of her light, brimming the at- 
mosphere with a delicate silver haze; 
indeed there went a shadowing round 
about its confines to the shaft of moon- 
light on the water that made it seem 
hollow where the wreck lay, and it was 
like floating in the vastness of the firma- 
ment that bent over it to glance over the 
side of the hull and see the mirror-like 
breast studded with reflections of the 
larger stars, and to follow the shadow of 
the deep, curled at the extremities as it 
seemed, to the tropic astral dust that 
twinkled there like dew trembling to the 
breath of a summer night wind. 

I had brought up some blankets from 
below and these I made a kind of mat- 
tress of under the shelter of the umbrella. 
It was about ten o’clock, I think, when I 
threw myself down upon them. A pleas- 
ant breeze was then blowing directly 
along the wake of moonlight, and the 


94 


THE WRECK OF 


water was rippling like the murmurs of 
a fountain against the sides of the pale, 
silent, gently-rolling hull. I lay awake 
for a long time listening to this cool, re- 
freshing, tinkling sound of running rip- 
ples, with a mind somewhat weakened 
by my distress. Indeed, many thoughts 
wearing a complexion of delirium passed 
through my head with several phantasies 
which must have frightened me as a 
menace of madness had my wits been 
equal to the significance of them. For 
example, I can recall seeing, as I be- 
lieved, the Ruby floating up towards the 
wreck out of the western gloom, luminous 
as a snow-clad iceberg, with the soft 
splendor of the moonshine on her can- 
vas ; I recollect this, I say, and that I 
laughed quietly at the thought of her ap- 
proach, as though I would ridicule my- 
self for the fears which had been upon 
me throughout the day; then of jump- 
ing up in a sudden transport and passion 
of delight; when the vision instantly 


THE CO RSA IRE. 


95 


vanished, whereupon a violent fit o£ 
trembling seized me, and I sank down 
again upon the blankets groaning. But 
the agitation did not linger ; some fresh 
deception of the brain would occur and 
win my attention to it. 

This went on till I fell asleep. Mean- 
while the breeze continued to blow 
steadily, and the rippling of water along 
the bends was like the sound of the fall- 
ing of large raindrops. 

I awoke, and turning my head towards 
the forepart of the wreck, I spied the 
figure of a man erect and motionless on 
the forecastle. The moon was low in 
the west; I might guess by her position 
that daybreak was not far off. By her 
red light I saw the man. I sat erect and 
swept a glance round ; there was no ship 
near me, no smudge upon the gloom to 
indicate a vessel at a distance. Father 
of heaven ! I thought, what is it ? Could 
yonder shadowy form be one of the three 
sailors who had been left on the wreck ? 


THE WRECK OF 


96 

Surely I had closely searched the hull ; 
there was nothing living aboard of her 
but myself. The sweat-drops broke 
from my brow as I sat motionless with 
my eyes fixed upon the figure that showed 
with an inexpressible ghostliness of out- 
line in the waning moonlight. On a sud- 
den there arose another figure alongside 
of him, seemingly out of the hard planks 
of the deck ; then a third ; and there the 
three of them stood apparently gazing 
intently aft at me, but without a stir in 
> their frames, that I could witness. Three 
of them ! 

I rose to my feet and essayed to speak, 
but could deliver no more than a whis- 
per. I tried again, and this time my 
voice sounded. 

“ In the name of God, who, and what 
are you ? ” 

“Ha!” cried one of them. He said 
something to his companions, in words 
which were unintelligible to me, then 
approached, followed by the others, all 


THE CORSAIRE. 


97 

three of them moving slowly, with a 
wavering gait, as though giddy. 

“ Som drink for Christu’s sake ! ” said 
the man who had cried Ha! pointing 
his finger at his mouth, and speaking in 
a tone that made one think of his throat 
as something rough, like a file. By this 
time it was clear to me they were no 
ghosts. I imagined them negroes, so 
dark their faces looked in the dim west 
rays and failing starlight. Whence they 
had sprung, in what manner they had 
arrived, I could not imagine; but it 
was not for me to stand speculating about 
them in the face of the husky appeal for 
drink. 

7 

















X. 


There was a parcel of candles in the 
pantry — as I term it. I had a flint and 
steel in my pocket, and followed by the 
men, I led the way below, bidding them 
stand awhile till I obtained a light; and 
after groping and feeling about with my 
hands, I found the paper of candles, 
lighted one, and then called to the men. 
They arrived. I pointed to the jars, 
saying in English, there was wine in 
them ; and then to the slung cask of 
water, and then to the food on the shel- 
ves. They instantly grasped each one 
of them a pannikin, and mixed a full 
draught and swallowed it, with a strange 
trembling sigh of relief and delight. 
They then fell upon the biscuit and 
sausage, eating like famished wolves 

99 


IOO 


THE WRECK OF 


both fists full, and cramming their 
mouths. They were not very much 
more distinguishable by the feeble light 
of the candle than on deck ; however, I 
was able to see they were not blacks. 
The man who had addressed me was of 
a deep Chinese yellow, with lineaments 
of an African pattern, a wide flat nose, 
huge lips, eyes like little shells of pol- 
ished ebony glued on porcelain. His 
hair /was the negro’s black wiry wool. 
He wore a short moustache, the fibres 
like the teeth of a comb, and there was 
a tuft of black wool upon his chin. 
Small gold earrings, a greasy old Scotch 
cap, a shirt like a dungaree jumper, and 
loose trousers thrust into a pair of half 
Wellingtons, completed the attire of the 
ugliest, most villainous-looking creature 
I had ever set eyes on. His companions 
were long-haired, chocolate-browed Port- 
uguese, or Spaniards — Dagos as the 
sailors call them ; I noticed a small gold 
crucifix sparkling upon the mossy breast 


THE CORSAIRE. 


IOI 


of one of them. Their feet were naked, 
indeed their attire consisted of no more 
than a pair of duck or canvas breeches, 
and an open shirt, and a cap. They 
continued to feed heartily, and several 
times helped themselves to the wine, 
though before doing so, the yellow-faced 
man would regularly point to the jar with 
a nod, as though asking leave. 

“You Englis, sah?” he exclaimed, 
when he had made an end of eating. I 
said yes. “ How long you been hear, 
sah ? ” 

I told him. He understood me per- 
fectly though I spoke at length, relating 
in fact my adventure. I then inquired 
who he and his companions were, and 
his story was to the following effect : 
That he was the boatswain, and the other 
two able seamen of a Portuguese ship 
called the Mary Joseph, bound to Singa- 
pore or to some Malay port. The 
vessel had been set on fire by one of the 
crew, an Englishman, who was skulking 


102 


THE WRECK OF 


drunkenly below after broaching a cask 
of rum. They had three boats which 
they hoisted out ; most of the people got 
away in the long-boat, six men were in 
the second boat, he and his two comrades 
got into the jolly-boat. They had with 
them four bottles of water, and a small 
bag of ship’s bread, and nothing more. 
They parted company with the other 
boats in the night, and had been four days 
adrift, sailing northwards by the sun as 
they reckoned, under a bit of a lug, and 
keeping an eager look-out though they 
sighted nothing ; until a little before sun- 
down that evening, they spied the speck 
of this wreck, and made for it, but so 
scant was the wind and so weak their 
arms that it had taken them nearly all 
night to measure the distance which 
would be a few miles only. They got 
their boat under the bow — she was ly- 
ing there now, he said — and stepped 
on board one after the other. This ex- 
plained to me their apparition. Of course 


THE CORSAIRE. 


io 3 

I had not seen the boat or heard her as 
she approached, and to me, lying aft, the 
three men rising over the bows looked as 
though, like ghostly essences, they had 
shaped themselves on the forecastle out 
through the solid plank. 

I addressed the others, but the yellow 
man told me that their language was a 
jargon of base Portuguese, of which I 
should be able to understand no more 
than here and there a word, even though 
I had been bred and educated in Lisbon. 

“ We mosh see to dah boat,” he ex- 
claimed, and spoke to his mates, appar- 
ently to that effect. 

I extinguished the candle, and followed 
them on deck. It was closer upon day- 
break than I had supposed. Already the 
gray was in the east, like a filtering of 
light through ash-colored silk, with the 
sea-line black as a sweep of India ink 
against it, and the moon a lumpish, dis- 
torted mass of faint dingy crimson, dying 
out in a sort of mistiness westwards, like 


104 


THE WRECK OF 


the snuff of a rushlight in its own smoke. 
Even whilst the three fellows were ma- 
noeuvring with the boat over the bow, the 
tropic day filled the heavens in abound, 
and it was broad morning all at once, 
with a segment of sun levelling a long 
line of trembling silver from the horizon 
down to mid-ocean. My first glance was 
for the Ruby , but the sea lay bare in 
every quarter. The fellows came drag- 
ging their boat aft ; I looked over and 
saw that the fabric was of a canoe-pattern, 
with a queer upcurled bow, and a stern 
as square as the amidship section of the 
boat ; four thwarts, short oars with oval- 
shaped blades, and a small mast with a 
square of lugsail lying with its yard in 
the bottom of the boat. 

The yellow man pointing to her ex- 
claimed in a hoarse, throaty, African 
guttural, “ It is good ve keep hor. Dis 
wreck hov no ’atch ; she sink, and vid- 
out hor,” nodding at the boat again, 
“ were ve be ? ” 


THE CORSAIRE. 


io 5 

I said yes, by all means let us secure 
the boat. He exclaimed that for the 
present she would lie safely astern, and 
with that they took a turn with the line 
that held her and she rested quietly on 
the sea clear of the quarter. 

Forthwith the three fellows began to 
explore the hull. The yellow man or 
boatswain, as I must henceforth call him, 
said no more to me than this as he pointed 
to the yawning hatches: ‘‘You are 
gen’elman,” with an ugly smile intended 
no doubt for a stroke of courtesy as he 
ran his eye over me : “ ve are common 
sailor. Ve vill see to stop dem hole. 
More fresh vataire to drink ve need. 
Possib more bee-low. Also tobacco.” 
And thus saying he cried out to the 
others in their own dialect, and the three 
of them went to the main hatchway and 
disappeared down it. 

I lifted the telescope and ran it over 
the sea, then sighed as with a breaking 
heart I laid the glass down again upon 


106 THE WRECK OF 

the deck. A strong sense of dismay 
filled me whilst I sat musing upon the 
men who were now coolly rummaging the 
vessel below. The rascality which lay 
in every line of the ugly yellow ruffian’s 
face, coupled with the stealthy, glittering 
glances, the greasy, snaky hair, the dark 
piratic countenances of the others might 
well have accounted for the apprehension, 
the actual consternation indeed which 
fell upon me whilst I thought of them. 
But that was not all. The recollection 
of the gold rushed upon me as a memory 
that had clean gone out of my mind, but 
that had suddenly flashed back upon me 
to communicate a sinister significance 
to the presence of the three Portuguese 
seamen. I can clearly understand now 
that my brain, as I have said, had been 
weakened by the horror of my situation, 
and by the long madness of expectation 
which had held it on fire whilst I searched 
the sea and waited for the Ruby to 
appear. So that, instead of accepting 


THE CORS A IRE. 


107 

these three foreign sailors as a kind of 
godsend with whose assistance I might 
be enabled to doctor up the wreck so as 
to fit her to float until help came, not to 
speak of them as companions in misery, 
human creatures to talk to, beings whose 
society would extinguish out of this 
dreadful situation the intolerable element 
of solitude — I say instead of viewing 
these men thus, as might have happened, 
I believe, had I been my old self, a pro- 
found fear and aversion to them seized 
me, and such was the state of my nerves 
at that time, I call to mind that I looked 
at the boat that hung astern with a sort 
of hurry in me to leap into her, cast her 
adrift, and sail away. 

With an effort I mastered my agitation, 
constantly directing glances at the sea 
with a frequent prayer upon my lip that 
if not the Ruby , then at least some ship 
to rescue me would heave into view be- 
fore sundown that night. 


XI. 


The men were a long while below. I 
stepped softly to the companion hatch, 
and bent my ear down it that I might 
know if they had made their way through 
the ’tween decks bulkhead into the cabin. 
The chink of money was very distinct, 
but that was all. Presently, however, I 
heard them talking in low voices, but 
their tongue was Hebrew to me, and I 
went back to my chair, looking yet again 
around the sea-line. I think they had 
been at least an hour below when they 
arrived on deck, emerging through the 
main hatch. They had walked forward 
without taking any notice of me, and 
disappeared through the fore-scuttle, 
whence, after a while, they arose bearing 
amongst them several tarpaulins which 

109 


no 


THE WRECK OF 


they had come across. I took it that 
there was a carpenter’s chest down there, 
for the yellow boatswain flourished a 
hammer in one hand, and a box of what 
proved to be roundheaded nails in the 
other. They carefully secured the hatch 
with a couple of these tarpaulins, then 
came to the quarter-deck, and similarly 
roofed the skylight and the companion 
hatch, saving that they left free a corner 
flap to admit of our passage up and down. 

“Dis is sailor vork,” said the boat- 
swain giving me a nod, whilst his face 
shone like a yellow sou-wester in a squall 
of wet with the sweat that flooded his 
repulsive visage. “ Dat vataire keep out 
now, sah.” 

“ It is well done,” said I, softening my 
voice to disguise the emotion of disgust 
and aversion which possessed me at sight 
of the ugly, treacherous, askant sort of 
stare he fastened upon me whilst he 
spoke. “ Have you breakfasted ? ” 

He came close to me before answer- 


THE CORSAIRE. 


hi 


ing ; the other two meanwhile remaining 
at the hatch and looking towards me. 

“ Ay,” he then said, “ dere ish plenty 
biscuit, plenty vataire, plenty beef,” in- 
dicating with a grimy thumb a portion 
of the hold that lay under the cabin floor. 
“ Dere ish plenty gold too,” he added in 
a hoarse, theatrical sort of whisper, with 
a sudden gleam in his little horrible eyes 
which to my fancy was so much like the 
blue flash off some keen and polished 
blade of poniard as anything I can figure 
to liken it to. 

“ Yes,” said I carelessly, “ plenty, I be- 
lieve. But I must break my own fast 
now. We shall need fresh water before 
the day’s out, and, praised be the saints, 
there is plenty of it, you say.” 

With that I went to the hatch, turned 
the flap of the tarpaulin and descended, 
eyed narrowly by the two fellows who 
stood beside it, and as I gained the in- 
terior I heard them say something to the 
boatswain, who responded with an off- 


1 12 


THE WRECK OF 


hand sort of ya, ya ! as though he would 
quiet a misgiving in them. I made a 
hurried meal off some wine, biscuit and 
cheese, and noticing as I passed on my 
way to the cabin again that the door of 
the berth in which the chest of gold stood 
was shut, I tried the handle and found 
it locked. The key was withdrawn. 
Smothering a curse upon the hour that 
had brought these creatures to the wreck, 
I lighted a cigar (of which I had a leather 
case half-full in my pocket), more for the 
easy look of it than for any need I felt for 
tobacco just then, and went in a lounge 
to the shelter of my umbrella. The boat- 
swain was examining the telescope when 
I arrived. He instantly put it down on 
perceiving me and went forward to where 
his mates were. They peered first over 
one side, pointing and talking, and argu- 
ing with amazing volubility and with 
astonishing contortions ; they then 
crossed to the other side, and looked 
over and fell into the same kind of hot, 


THE CO RS A IRE. 


IT 3 

eager talk and gesticulations. It was 
easy to guess that they spoke about the 
spars which floated, held by their gear, 
against the wreck. After a bit they 
came to an agreement, disappeared in 
the forecastle and returned with tackles 
and coils of rope. One of them went 
over the side, and after a while there they 
were hauling upon purchases and slowly 
bringing the spar out of water, the boat- 
swain talking and bawling with furious 
energy the whole while. I went forward 
to help them, and the yellow ruffian 
nodded when I seized hold of the rope 
they were pulling at, and cried with a 
hoarse roar of laughter, “Yash, yash. 
Ve make a mast, ve make a yart, and ve 
put up sail, and ve steer to our own 
countree and be reech men.” 

Dagos as they were, they had some 
trick of seamanship amongst them. 
There was stump enough left of the 
foremast to secure the heel of a spar to, 
and by four o’clock that afternoon, with 
8 


114 


THE WRECK OF 


a break of but a single half-hour for a 
meal and a smoke (they had found plenty 
of pipes and tobacco in the seamen’s 
chests between decks), they had rigged 
up and stayed a jury-mast and crossed 
it with a yard manufactured from a boom 
of the wreckage to larboard ; which, 
light as the breeze was, yet furnished 
them with spread of sail enough to give 
the sheer-hulk steerage way. 

I had lent them a hand and done my 
landsman’s best, and had gone aft to rest 
myself and to sweep the sea with the 
telescope for the hundredth time that 
day. The three men were below getting 
some supper. The hull was stirring 
through the water at a snail’s pace to a 
weak, hot wind blowing right over her 
taffrail out of the southeast. The helm 
was amidships, and her short length of 
oil-smooth wake showed her going 
straight without steering. I could dis- 
tinctly hear the men conversing in the 
cabin. I reckoned because they knew 


THE CORSAIRE. 


JI 5 

their lingo was unintelligible to me that 
they talked out. There was a fiery 
eagerness in the tones they sometimes 
delivered themselves in, but earnestly as 
I listened I could catch no meaning but 
that of their imprecations, which readily 
enough took my ear owing to a certain 
resemblance between them and Spanish 
and Italian oaths. A short interval of 
silence followed. All three then came 
on deck, one of them carrying a jar and 
another a canvas bag. I instantly ob- 
served that every man of them had 
girded a cutlass to his side. They 
seemed to avoid my gaze as they walked 
to the pin to which the line that con- 
nected the boat was belayed, and hauled 
her alongside. I threw away my cigar 
and stood up. The first idea that oc- 
curred to me was, they were going to 
victual the boat, sway the chest of gold 
into her and sail away from me ; and I 
cannot express with what devotion I 
prayed to my Maker that this might 


n6 THE WRECK OF 

prove so. I looked from one to the 
other of them. Once I caught a side- 
long glance from the boatswain ; other- 
wise they went to this business as though 
I were not present, talking in rough, 
hurried whispers, with an occasional ex- 
clamation from the yellow ruffian, that 
was like saying, “ Make haste ! ” When 
the boat was alongside one of them 
dropped into her, and received the jar 
and bag from the other. He then re- 
turned, and the moment he was inboards 
the boatswain, rounding upon me, drew 
his cutlass and pointed to the boat. 

“ Be pleashed to get in and go away ! ” 
he exclaimed. 

“ Go away ! ” I echoed, too much 
thunderstruck by the villain’s order to 
feel or witness the horror of the fate 
designed for me. “What have I done 
that you should ? ” 

He interrupted me with a roar. “ Go 
quick ! ” he cried, lifting his weapon as 
though to strike, “ or I kill you ! ” 


THE CORSAIRE. 


IJ 7 

The hands of the others groped at the 
hilts of their cutlasses ; all three eyed 
me now, and there was murder in every 
man’s look. Without a word I stepped 
to the side, and sprang into the boat. 
One of them threw the line off the pin 
into the sea. “ Hoise your sail and 
steer that way, or we shoot ! ” bellowed 
the yellow ruffian, waving his cutlass 
towards the sea astern. God knows 
there were small arms enough in the 
cabin to enable them to fulfil that threat. 
I grasped the halliards, mastheaded the 
little lug, and throwing an oar over the 
stern, sculled the boat’s head round, and 
in a minute was slipping away from the 
hull, at the stern of which the three men 
stood watching me, the blade in the 
boatswain’s hand shining to the sun 
like a wand of fire as he continued to 
point with it into the southeast. 



XII. 

Here now was I adrift in the mighty 
heart of the Indian Ocean in a small 
boat like a canoe ; so shaped that she was 
little likely to lie close to the wind, hun- 
dreds of leagues from the nearest point 
of land, and in apart of the deep naviga- 
ted in those days at long intervals only — I 
mean by the Dutch and English traders 
to the east ; for the smaller vessels kept 
a much more westerly longitude than 
where I was, after rounding the Cape ; 
often striking through the Mozambique 
or so climbing as to have the Mauritius 
aboard. Never was human being in a 
more wildly-desperate situation. I did 
not for an instant doubt that this was 
the beginning of the end, that if I was 
not capsized and drowned out of hand 

IX 9 


120 


THE WRECK OF 


by some growing sea, I was to perish 
(unless I took my own life) of hunger 
and thirst. Yet the rage and terror 
which were upon me when I looked over 
my shoulder at the receding wreck 
passed away, with the help of God to be 
sure, ere the figures of the miscreants who 
had served me thus had been blended 
by distance out of their shapes into the 
body and hues of the hull. I thought 
to myself it is an escape, at all events. 
I may perish here ; yet is there hope ; 
but had I stayed yonder I was doomed : 
the sight of the gold had made them 
thirsty for my life. In my sleep, ay, or 
even waking, they would have hacked 
me to pieces and flung me overboard to 
the sharks here. 

In this consideration, I say, I seemed 
to find a source of comfort. If I died 
as I now was, it would be God’s act, 
whereas had I remained in the wreck I 
must have been brutally butchered by 
the wretches whom the devil had de- 


THE CORSAIRE. 


1 2 I 


spatched to me in the darkness of the 
morning that was gone. Nevertheless I 
was at a loss to comprehend their motive 
in thus using me. First of all by send- 
ing me away in their boat, they had 
robbed themselves of their only chance 
of escape should the wreck founder. 
Then again, I was a man with a service- 
able pair of hands belonging to me, and 
how necessary willing help was to persons 
circumstanced as they were, they could 
easily have gathered from the labors of 
the day. Besides, they would be able 
to judge of my condition by my attire, 
and how could they be sure that I should 
demand the treasure or put in my claim 
for a share of it ? But I need not weary 
you with my speculations. The sun 
sank when there was a space of about a 
league betwixt my boat and the wreck, 
and the darkness came in a stride out 
of the east. The wind was weak and 
hot, and there was a crackling noise of 
ripples round about the boat as she lay 


122 


THE WRECK OF 


with scarce any way upon her, lightly 
but briskly bobbing upon the tropic 
ocean dimples. When the darkness 
came I let fall my sail, intending later 
on, when the wreck should have got 
well away towards the horizon, to head 
north ; for methought the further I drew 
towards the equator out of these seas the 
better would be my chance of being 
rescued. The stars were very plentiful, 
rich, and brilliant that night. I gave 
God thanks for their company, and for 
the stillness and peace upon the ocean, 
and I prayed to Him to watch over and 
to succor me. When the moon rose I 
stood up and looked around, but saw 
nothing of the wreck; on which I 
hoisted my sail afresh and headed the 
boat north, as I conjectured, by the 
position of the moon. There was a deal 
of fire in the sea, and I would again and 
again direct my eyes at the fitful flash- 
ing over the side with a dread in me of 
witnessing the outline of a shark. 


THE CORSAIRE. 


123 


The moon had been risen about two 
hours, when I spied the gleam of water 
in the bottom of the boat. I was greatly- 
startled, believing that she was leaking. 
Certainly there had been no water when 
I first entered her nor down to this 
minute had I noticed the gleam or heard 
the noise of it in her. There was a 
little pewter mug in the stern sheets, a 
relic of the ship from which the Portu- 
guese had come. I fell to baling with it, 
and presently emptied the boat. No 
more water entered, for which at first I 
was deeply thankful ; but after a little I 
got musing upon how it could have pen- 
etrated, seeing that no more came ; and 
then a dreadful suspicion entering my 
mind, I looked for the jar which the 
Portuguese had handed into the boat, 
and saw it lying on its bilge in the bows. 
I picked it up and shook it ; it was 
empty ! It had been corked by a piece 
of canvas which still remained in the 
bung, but on the jar capsizing through 


124 


THE WRECK OF 


the jerking of the boat, the water had 
easily drained out, and it was this 
precious fluid which I had been fever- 
ishly baling and casting overboard ! 

Maddened as I was by this discovery, 
I had yet sense enough remaining to sop 
my handkerchief in the little puddle that 
still damped the bottom of the boat, and 
to wring the moisture into the pewter 
measure. But at the outside half a pint 
was the utmost I recovered, which done 
I sat me down, my face buried in my 
hands, with my eyes scorched as though 
they were seared by the burning tears 
that rose to them from my full and break- 
ing heart. 

The night passed. Hour after hour I 
lay in a sort of stupefaction in the stern 
sheets, taking no notice of the weather, 
my eyes fixed upon the stars, a little space 
of which directly over my head I would 
crazily essay to number. Once I pressed 
the handkerchief to my parched lips, but 
found the damp of it brackish, and threw 


THE CORSAIRE. 


12 5 

it from me. But I would not touch the 
precious drop of water I had preserved. 
Too bitterly well did I guess how the 
morrow’s sun would serve me, and the 
very soul within me seemed to recoil 
from the temptation to moisten my dry 
and burning tongue. 

The memory of the early hours of that 
morning, of daybreak, of the time that 
followed, is but that of a delirium. I 
took no heed of my navigation. The 
sheet of the sail was fast, and the boat 
travelled softly before the gentle breeze 
that sat in little curls upon the water. 
I recollect thinking in a stupid, half- 
numbed way, that the boat was pursuing 
the path of the wreck whose one sail 
would suffer her to travel only straight 
before the wind. But the pain of thirst, 
the anguish of my situation, the madden- 
ing heat of the sun, the cruel, eternal 
barrenness of the ocean ; these things 
combined, lay like death upon me. I 
was sensible only that I lived and suf- 


126 


THE WRECK OF 


fered. There was biscuit in the can- 
vas bag which had been put in the boat. 
I thought by munching a fragment to 
ease the anguish in my throat, but found 
I could not swallow. Ah, heavenly God ! 
the deliriousness of the gaze which I fast- 
ened upon the clear, cool, blue water 
over the side, the horrible temptation to 
drink of it, to plunge, and soak, and 
drown in it, the torment of the seething 
and creaming noises of its ripples against 
the burning sides of the boat, which 
sickened the atmosphere with their poi- 
sonous smell of hot paint ! 

The night came — a second night. 
Some relief from the thirst which tor- 
tured me I had obtained by soaking my 
underclothes, and wearing the garments 
streaming. It was a night of wonderful 
oceanic beauty and tenderness : the 
moon, a glorious sphere of brilliancy, 
the wind sweet and cool with dew, and 
the sea sleeping to the quiet cradling of 
its swell. I had not closed my eyes for 


THE CORSAIRE. 


127 


many a long weary hour, and nature 
could hold out no longer. It was a little 
before midnight I think that I fell asleep ; 
the boat was then sailing quietly along, 
and steering herself, making a fair 
straight course of her progress — though 
to what quarter of the heavens she was 
carrying me I knew not, nor for a long 
while had thought of guessing. When I 
awoke the darkness was still upon the 
ocean, and the moon behind a body of 
high light cloud which she whitened and 
which concealed her, though her radi* 
ance yet lay in the atmosphere as a twi- 
light. Right ahead of me, but at what 
distance I could not imagine, there 
floated a dark object upon the water. 
My glance had gone to her sleepily, but 
the instant it fell upon her I sprang to 
my feet, and bounded like a dart into the 
bow of the boat, and stood with my 
hands on the square of the canoe-shaped 
stem, straining my sight into the gloom. 

She was a ship — no doubt of that; 


128 


THE WRECK OF 


yet she puzzled me greatly, the light was 
so thin and deceptive that I could dis- 
tinguish little more than the block of 
blackness she made upon the dark sea. 
Apparently she was lying with all sails 
furled, or else hauled up close to the 
the yards. One moment I would think 
that she was without masts, then I im- 
agined I could perceive a visionary fab- 
ric of spar and rope. But she was a 
ship ! Help she would yield me — the 
succor of her deck, and, oh my God ! 
one drink, but one drink of water ! 

I flung the oars over, and weak as I 
was fell to rowing with might and main. 
The boat buzzed through the ripples to 
the impulse of my thirst-maddened arms. 
The shadow ahead slowly loomed larger 
and closer, till all in a breath I saw by 
a sudden gleam of moonlight which 
sparkled through a rent in the cloud, 
that she was the Corsaire ! 


XIII. 

I dropped the oars, let fall the sail, 
and stood with my eyes fixed upon her, 
considering a little. Would the men 
murder me if I boarded her? Or would 
they not fill my empty jar for me on my 
beseeching them, on my pointing to my 
frothing lip as the yellow man had done, 
on my asking for water only, promising 
to depart at once ? Why, it was better 
to be butchered by their cutlasses than 
to perish thus. I felt mad at the thought 
of a long sweet draught of wine and water 
out of a cold pannikin, and rendered 
utterly defiant, absolutely reckless by 
my sufferings, and by the dream and 
allurement of a drink of water, I fell to 
the oars again, and rowed the boat 
alongside the wreck. 

9 


129 


130 


THE WRECK OF 


I now noticed for the first time that 
the mast and sail which the fellows had 
erected were gone. Indeed the mast lay 
over the side, and the sail floated black 
under it in the water. I listened; all 
was hushed as death in the motionless 
hulk. I secured the painter of the boat 
to the chain plate, sprang on to the deck 
and stood looking a minute. Close to 
the wheel lay the figure of a man. He 
was sound asleep as I might suppose, 
his head pillowed on his arm, the other 
arm over his face in a posture of shelter- 
ing it. He was the only one of the 
three visible. Wildly reckless always 
and goaded with the agony of thirst I 
went straight to the hatch and dropped 
into the cabin. The blackness was that 
of a coal-mine, but I knew the way, and 
after a little groping found the pantry 
door and entered. With an eager hand 
I sought for a candle, found one and 
lighted it, and in a few minutes my 
thirst was assuaged and I was standing 


THE CORSAIRE. 


X 3* 

with clasped uplifted hands thanking 
God for the exquisite comfort of the 
draught. Yet I drank cautiously. My 
need made me believe that I could have 
drained a cask to its dregs, but I forced 
my dreadful craving to be satisfied with 
scarce more than a quarter of a pint. 
The drink relaxed the muscles of my 
throat and I was able to eat. After- 
wards I drank a little again, and then I 
felt a new man. 

I stayed about twenty minutes in the 
pantry, in which time I heard no kind 
of noise saving a dim creak now and 
again from the hold of the wreck. Ex- 
tinguishing the candle I entered the 
cabin and stood debating with myself on 
the course I should follow. Water I 
must have : should I fill a jar and carry 
it stealthily to the boat and be off and 
take my chance of managing the busi- 
ness unheard? Yes, I would do that, 
and if I aroused the sleepers, why, see- 


1 3 2 


THE WRECK OF 


ing that I was willing to go they might 
not refuse me a supply of drink. . . . 

I was musing thus when there was the 
sound of a yawn on deck. At that mo- 
ment I remembered the array of cut- 
lasses that embellished the cabin ceil- 
ing. It was the noise the fellow made, 
the perception that one of the three at 
all events was awake with his mates 
somewhere at hand to swiftly alarm, 
which put the thought of those cutlasses 
into my head, or it is fifty to one if in 
the blackness of, that interior I should 
have recollected them. I sprang upon 
the table and in a moment was gripping 
a blade. The very feel of it, the mere 
sense of being armed, sent the blood 
rushing through my veins as though to 
some tonic of miraculous potency. 
“ Now,” thought I, setting my teeth, 
“let the ruffians fall upon me if they 
will. If my life is to be taken it shall 
not be for the want of an English arm 
to defend it.” 


THE CORSAIRE. 


133 


I jumped on to the deck, went stealth- 
ily to the foot of the steps and listened. 
The man yawned again, and I heard the 
tread of his foot as he moved, whence I 
suspected him to be the yellow boat- 
swain, the others being unshod, though 
to be sure there were shoes enough in 
the ’tween decks for them had they a 
mind to help themselves. As I sent a 
look up through the lifted corner of tar- 
paulin over the hatch I spied the deli- 
cate, illusive gray of daybreak in the 
air, and so speedy was the coming of the 
dawn that it lay broad with the sun close 
under the rim of the horizon ere I could 
form a resolution whilst listening to 
make sure that he who was on deck 
continued alone. Then hearing him 
yawn again and no sound of the others 
reaching my ears, I mounted the steps 
and gained the deck. 

It was the Portuguese boatswain, as 
I had imagined. He was in the act of 
seating himself much in the same place 


134 


THE WRECK OF 


where I had seen him sleeping when I 
had boarded the vessel ; but he instantly 
saw me as I arose, and remained motion- 
less and rigid as though blasted by a flash 
of lightning. His jaw dropped, his hid- 
eous little eyes protruded bright with 
horror and fright from their sockets, and 
his yellow face changed into a sort of 
greenish tint like mottled soap or the 
countenance of a man in a fit. No 
doubt he supposed me a spectre, rising 
as I did in that way out of the cabin 
when the rogue would imagine me a 
hundred miles off, or floating a corpse 
in the water, and I dare say but for the 
paralysis of terror that had fixed his 
jaw some pious sentences would have 
dropped from him. For my part I hung 
in the wind undecided, at a loss to act. 
I sent a look over my shoulder to ob- 
serve if the others were about, and the 
movement of my head seemed like the 
release of him from the constraint of my 
eye. He leapt into an erect posture and 


THE CORSAIRE. 


*35 


rushed to the side, saw the boat, uttered 
a cry for all the world resembling the 
rough, saw-like yell of the albatross 
stooping to some bait in the foaming 
eddies of a wake, in a bound came back 
to the binnacle, the body of which stood, 
though the compass, hood and glass 
were gone, and thrusting his hand into 
it pulled out a pistol which he levelled 
at me. The weapon flashed as I ran at 
him. Ere he had time to draw the cut- 
lass which dangled at his hip, I had 
buried the blade, the large heavy hilt of 
which I grasped with both hands, deep 
in his neck, crushing clean through his 
right jaw ; and even whilst he was in the 
act of falling I had lifted and brought 
the cutlass down upon him again, this 
time driving the edge of it so deep into 
his skull that the weight of him as he 
dropped dead dragged the weapon out 
of my hand, and it was a wrestle of some 
moments to free the blade. 


THE WRECK OF 


136 

I swept round fully prepared for the 
confrontment of the others, who, I took 
it, if they were sleeping below, would 
rush up on deck on hearing the report 
of the pistol. My head was full of blood ; 
I felt on fire from my throat to my feet. 
God knows why or how it was, for I 
should have imagined of myself that the 
taking of a human life would palsy my 
muscles with the horror of the thing to the 
weakness of a woman’s arm ; and yet in 
the instant of my rounding, prepared for, 
panting for a sight of the other two, I 
seemed conscious of the strength of a 
dozen men in me. 

All was still. The sun had risen in 
splendor ; the ocean was a running sur- 
face of glory under him, and the blue of 
the south had the dark tenderness of 
violet with the gushing into it of the hot 
and sparkling breeze which had sprung up 
in the north with the coming of the morn. 
Where were the others ? My eyes reeled 
as they went from the corpse of the 


THE CORSAIRE. 


*3 7 


Portuguese to the pistol he had let drop. 
I picked it up ; it was a rude weapon 
belonging to the armory of the Corsaire. 
I conjectured that the miscreant would 
not have thus armed himself without pro- 
viding a stock of ammunition at hand, 
and on putting my arm into the binnacle 
stand I found, sure enough, a powder- 
horn and a parcel of pistol-bullets. I 
carefully loaded the weapon, narrowly 
seeing to the priming, all the while con- 
stantly glancing along the deck and listen- 
ing. Then with the pistol in one hand 
and the cutlass in the other, I stepped 
below, furious and eager for a sight of 
the dead man’s mates. 

The lifted tarpaulin let the morning 
sunshine fall fair into the cabin, and 
now I saw that which had before been in- 
visible to me ; I mean a great blood-stain 
upon the deck, with a spattering of blood- 
drops and spots of more hideous sug- 
gestion yet, round about. A thin trail 
of blood went from the large stain upon 


THE WRECK OF 


138 

the floor along through the passage be- 
twixt the berths, and so to the main hatch. 
Ha ! thought I, this signifies murder ! I 
found nothing in the cabins. The door 
of the berth in which the chest of gold 
stood was locked, but on putting my 
whole weight against it with knee and 
shoulder it flew open. The contents of 
the place were as I had before taken 
notice of ; and there were no signs here 
of either dead or living men. I regained 
the deck, and walking forward observed 
a thin line of blood going from the coam- 
ings of the main hatch to the side. It 
was the continuation and termination of 
the trail below, and most unmistakably 
denoted the passage of a bleeding body 
borne through the hatch and cast over- 
board. I walked further forward yet, 
and on the forecastle witnessed another 
wide stain of blood. It looked fresher 
than the other — nay, it was not yet dry, 
and the heat went out of my body, and 
ice-cold shudders swept through my limbs 


THE CO RS AIRE. 


r 39 

as I turned my back upon it, sick, dizzy, 
and trembling. 

Those horrible marks gave me the 
whole story as fully as though the 
dead brute aft had recited it to me at 
large ere I struck him down. He had 
murdered his mates one after the 
other to be alone with the gold. It 
had been murder cold and deliberate, I 
was sure. There were no signs of a 
struggle ; there were no hints of any pre- 
vious conflict in the person of the yellow 
Portuguese. It was as though he had 
crept behind the men one after another, 
and struck them down with a chopper. 
Indeed I was as sure of this as though I 
had witnessed the deed ; and there was 
the chest of gold in the cabin to explain 
the reason of it. How he hoped to man- 
age if he fell in with a ship (and I know 
not what other expectation of coming off 
with his life he could have formed) it is 
useless to conjecture. Some plausible 
tale no doubt he would have taken care 


140 


THE WRECK OF 


to prepare, claiming the gold as his by- 
law of treasure-trove. 

I let fall the weapons, and lay over a 
little strip of bulwark, panting for breath. 
My eyes were upon the water over the 
side, but a minute after, on directing them 
at the sea-line, I spied the sails of a ship, 
a square of pearl glimmering in the blue 
distance, and slightly leaning from the 
hot and brilliant breeze gushing fair down 
upon her starboard beam. Scarce had 
my mind had time to recognize the object 
as a ship, when it vanished ; a reddish 
gloom boiled up mist-like all about me ; 
the ocean to a mile away from the side 
of the wreck turned of the deep crimson 
of blood, spinning round like a teetotum ; 
then followed blackness, and I remember 
no more. . . . 


XIV. 


When consciousness returned I found 
myself lying in a bunk in a ship’s cabin. 
The place was familiar to me, and I 
recollect in a weak way trying to find out 
why it should be so. “ Why, confound 
it all,” I muttered, “ this is my cabin 
aboard the Ruby. God ! what a dream 
it has been ! ” 

" Very glad your senses have returned 
to you, Mr. Catesby. It’s been a doocid 
long faint, sir, ’’exclaimed a familiar voice, 
and no less a person than the second 
mate of the Ruby came to my bedside. 

A moment after the door opened, and the 
doctor of the ship entered. I was about to 
speak ; he peremptorily motioned silence, 
felt my pulse and brow, nodding approv- 
ingly ; then addressing the mate, thanked 

141 


142 


THE WRECK OE 


him for keeping watch and told him 
he could go. As my dawning intellects 
brightened, my eagerness to make sure of 
the reality of the adventure I had come 
through grew into a little fever. When 
I looked round the cabin and saw my 
clothes hanging upon the bulkhead, 
my books, the twenty odds and ends of 
the homely furniture of my berth, I could 
not but believe that I had fallen ill, been 
seized perhaps with a fever, and that 
the incidents of the wreck, the open boat, 
the murderous Portuguese, were a mere 
vision of my distempered brain. But for 
some hours the doctor had his way, 
would not suffer me to talk, with his own 
hand brought me broth and wine, and 
now, finding me strong enough I sup- 
posed to support a conversation, went 
out, and in a few minutes returned with 
Captain Bow. 

It was then my suspicion that all that 
had happened to me was most horribly 
and fearfully real was confirmed. The 


THE COES A IRE. 


143 


boat that had left me aboard the wreck 
had been sighted sweeping down in the 
mist ; twenty ropes’ ends had been hove 
at her from th eRuby^ and in few minutes 
her people were safe on the Indiaman’s 
deck. Sail was shortened to close-reefed 
topsails, but a black blowing night drew 
around, as you know, and when the dawn 
broke the wreck was nowhere visible. 
Light, baffling weather followed. Mean- 
while Bow swore that he would not quit 
these waters till he had exhausted the 
inside of a week in search for me. At 
sunrise that morning the wreck was 
signalled from the fore-top-gallant yard 
of the Ruby . The ship was immediately 
headed for it, and in a couple of hours 
was close aboard. The chief officer was 
sent in charge of a boat, and I was found 
lying, dead as they thought, a fathom’s 
distance from a large stain of blood, 
whilst aft was the body of a half-caste 
with his head cut open. They left him 
as he lay, but me they handed into the 


144 


THE WRECK OF 


boat to carry on board, with the design 
of giving me a Christian burial, till the 
doctor, looking at me, asked if they want- 
ed to add to the horrors of the wreck by 
drowning a living man, and ordered me 
to be conveyed at once to my bed. 

This was the captain’s story, and I 
then told mine. Both he and the doctor 
exchanged looks as I talked. It was 
tolerably evident to my mind that they 
only believed in about a quarter of what 
.. I told them. 

“But, Captain,” I cried, “ on my 
solemn honor as a gentleman, as I am 
alive here to say it, there was gold to the 
value of many thousands of pounds in 
the chest.” 

“ Yes, yes,” he answered with a glance 
of compassion at me. “I don’t doubt it, 
Mr. Catesby. So much the better for 
the mermen when it goes down to them ; 
it will render the mermaids more plac- 
able, I don’t doubt.” 

“ But, gracious mercy ! ” I cried, “ it 


THE CORSAIRE. 


J 4S 


is only the sending of a boat, you know. 
Why, sir, there’s enough in that chest to 
yield a little fortune to every mother’s 
son of us aboard.” 

“ Yes, yes,” said Captain Bow, with a 
faint smile of concern at the doctor, who 
kept his eyes with a knowing look in 
them fastened upon the deck. “ But we 
took you off the wreck, my dear sir, a 
little before nine o’clock, and it is now 
after four, and as our speed has been a 
comfortable eight knots ever since, you 
may reckon the hulk at sixty miles’ dis- 
tance astern. No, Mr. Catesby, we’re 
bound to Bombay this time in earnest, 
sir. No more hunting after wrecks this 
voyage.” 

But I got every man-jack of the pas- 
sengers, with the whole ship’s company 
to boot, to credit my story up to the hilt 
before we had measured half the length 
of the Bay of Bengal, and such was the 
conviction I had inspired forwards at all 
events that the third mate one night told 
io 


146 THE WRECK OF THE CO RS A IRE. 

me it was reported that a number of the 
forecastle hands had made up their 
minds to charter, if possible, if not, then 
to run away with, a country wallah on 
the Ruby's arrival at Bombay, and sail 
the Indian Ocean till they fell in with the 
wreck — if she was still afloat. 


THE END. 


HISTORY OF BOHEMIA, 


by Robert H. Vickers, 

8vo, Cloth with map and illustrations, $3.50 

Endorsed by the Bohemians of America, through their 
national organzation, as the most complete, accurate, 
and sympafhetic narrative of their country’s history 
in English. 

In the compilation of his stiring narative Mr. 
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the thanks of English-readingstudents for hav- 
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Mr. Vickers has rendered a great service to 
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Robert H. Vickers has rendered a lasting ser- 
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* * The body of the work bears every 

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Mr. Markham has done his work well, and 
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— The Literary World. 

Mr. Markham is thoroughly at home with his 
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8vo, Cloth, with map and illustrations, $2.50 

It has been Mr. Hancock’s endeavour to give 
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It is on the period between the years 1830 and 
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